


The Fallen

by SylviaDragon



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Action, Angst, Backstory, Chara you misleading manipulative lil shit, Depression, Evil Chara, Female Chara, Finished, Gen, Genocide, OCs - Freeform, POV Chara, POV OC, POV changes from time to time, Self-Harm, Setting: Genocide/soulless run, Soulless runs, Spoilers: all of them, Suicide, Talk of Suicide, The human has no idea how magic/resets work, Timeline starts to fray, Torture, adult human, bad language, death?, done, flashbacks/dreams, forshadowing shhh, grim themes, human is not frisk, multiple resets, multiple runs, ships? what ships? we only ride the pain train here pal, so many feels, soulless, sticks fairly close to the vanilla order of things on the first run, wordcount over 100.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-15
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2018-07-15 03:38:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 56
Words: 310,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7205651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylviaDragon/pseuds/SylviaDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wishing to back out of her suicide attempt only after she hit the ground, the fallen human finds that she is unable to move. When a voice offers to save her for a price, she is too terrified of the darkness to do anything but accept. At first the voice seems helpful, promising to guide her out of the Underground so that she can see the sun again. But as time goes on and her control over her own body begins to slip away, she is forced to face the horrible truth of what she has allowed herself to become. Now she seeks the answer to but one question: can a soulless person save the timeline from shattering?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First misstep/A great start

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 ~~First misstep~~ / **A great start**
> 
> Someone makes a mistake and then makes an even BIGGER mistake when trying to escape the consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Read the tags! Things can get kind of grim but giving specific warnings per chapter would really ruin some of the twists so be aware of whats listed!**  
>  Alright. *deep breath* Here we go…

 

 

 

 

 

> ## Part One: Rainfall
> 
> She didn’t want to wake up. She didn’t plan to. She was comfortable at first. To be honest burying herself deeper inside the darkness sounded nice. But over time she became more aware of the uneven feel of her soft bed. She felt rocks digging into her back and bugs crawling on her skin. A cold wind was trying to chase away the fading warmth of sunlight. She hurt but she couldn’t get up. She was stuck in the dark. Trapped behind her own eyelids. This had not been how she had planned it.
> 
> The sunlight began to fade and cold droplets of water began to fall, making her clothes damp. She began to shiver.
> 
> She called out for help, but no one came.
> 
> Wait, no, what was that? Something had come. There was something in the darkness. Moving.
> 
> _“Oh my.”_ A voice purred. _“It seems you have fallen down. Can you not get up?”_
> 
> She tried to open her mouth to answer but it felt clogged. Clogged by air, thought, and a suffocating darkness that bit down on her tongue.
> 
> She felt the voice smile. _“I assumed as much. They never do get back up, you know.”_ It sighed. _“Such a waste.”_
> 
> She tried to reach out towards the voice in a moment of panic. She had changed her mind. She wanted to see again. She wanted to breathe again. She wanted to live! She tried to beg the voice for help but still the air in her lungs seemed to be of a substance thick enough to gag her.
> 
> Luckily the voice seemed to understand her anyway. _“I can help you. Would you like that?”_
> 
> She managed to move her arms. She reached out towards the voice but only gripped the soft petals of a flower. The movement sent stabs of fire through her limbs. _“Yes! Yes! Please, help me!”_ She thought, grasping the flowers and weeds like they were a life raft.
> 
> _“If I save you, you have to take me with you. Do you promise?”_
> 
> Perhaps if she had not been in so much pain she would have paid closer attention to the nature of the voice. Perhaps if she had not been so scared she would have heard the sound of its desperate hunger, ravenous and clawing just behind its unseen grinning teeth.
> 
> But she was alone. Cold, hurt and desperate. Her only thought was to be thankful that someone had come along to help her despite the odds stacked against such an encounter.
> 
> _“Of course! Anything you say. Anything you want. Just make it stop hurting. I don’t want to hurt anymore. I want to see again. I want to move. I want to breathe!”_
> 
> _“Really? Anything? Anything I want? Are you sure? Even if I were to ask you for… your soul?”_ It mused.
> 
> _“I don’t care! Just don’t let me die!”_
> 
> A gust of air hit her. The sensation was accompanied by an acidic touch that made her mind scream out in pain and terror. She was on fire. Burning. Turning to ash. All her wounds throbbed as one. Yet the pain passed and was replaced by the dull feeling of flesh knitting itself back together.
> 
> When the heat faded it left a deep chilling cold in her chest that made her skin hurt and her bones ache.
> 
> “ _We are together now. Don’t worry. I will show you the way. Now open your eyes. Greet the new day and choose your name.”_
> 
> She frowned, confused. _“I already have a name.”_
> 
> _“I have remade you. The old you died when she fell. You are someone new now. Stronger. Smarter. _ **Better**_. And now that we are together you need to call yourself something new. Now, open your eyes.”_
> 
> Her eyes flickered open. She shut them again with a grimace as droplets of water hit her in the face. She groaned and wiped the droplets away.
> 
> _“Good. Now _ **get up**_.”_
> 
> She slowly rose to her feet, opening and closing her hands, stretching her arms. With some hesitance she put weight on her legs. To her surprise they were no longer broken. She was whole again.
> 
> No, she was something different than whole.
> 
> Something more? Something less? The voice waved these thoughts away.
> 
> She looked up into the dull, diluted daylight she was standing in, more water falling on her face. “Rain.” She whispered, brushing the droplets from her eyelashes. Her voice was rough and dry but being able to speak again was nearly enough to make her weep with relief. If it was still raining then she could not have been trapped in that darkness for long.
> 
> She felt the voice grin. It was like feeling a cut bleed warmth down her chest. _“Rain. Yes. It’s been so long since I have felt rain. Let’s name us that. Rain. So many poetic opportunities for a name like that.”_
> 
> She frowned a little. “I think I will stick with my old name, thanks.” She slowly turned around. “Where are you? I don’t see you.” She squinted into the darker parts of the world around her in search of the voice. Yet she appeared to be alone.
> 
> _“I’m here. Don’t worry, I won’t leave you. So, what do you call yourself then if not Rain?”_
> 
> She opened her mouth in response but the word vanished from her mind like it had been draped in shadow. She closed her mouth, confused and embarrassed to have forgotten her own name. She felt her cheeks redden.
> 
> _“Don’t remember? Oh well. I guess Rain will have to do then. Now come along. We have work to do if you ever want to get back home.”_
> 
> “Where are we?” She looked around again, taking in the area. She was surrounded by golden flowers sprinkled with raindrops. Off in the distance there seemed to be some ruins outlined by a distant, dim, baseless light. Vines and moss cloaked their cracked bodies.
> 
> _“The Underground. It’s a vile place for people like us. Best to stay on guard. There are monsters in these ruins.”_
> 
> Rain balked at this. “Monsters? Underground? That’s ridiculous. That whole story is a myth.” She rubbed one of the unhealed bumps on her head and tried to take a few shaky steps forward to test her strength. She was able to walk but was still horribly sore.
> 
> _“Oh it’s all very real.”_ The voice laughed. _“It’s out there in all its dark, cold, slimy glory: the world of monsters! The place where demons were sent to die.”_
> 
> Her legs were stiff but she managed to get around just fine. It surprised her at first when she realized she was moving on with a purpose even though she did not know where to go. She had been so focused on listening to the whispers that she had not even realized she had been moving.
> 
> The voice continued to tag along, coy in its musings. _“How odd it is that you chose to climb this mountain. Humans that fall down here are always killed. Why would anyone ever decide to climb Ebott when it has a reputation like that? Weren’t there rumors? Myths? Stories to warn you away?”_
> 
> Rain ducked her head. “Of course there were stories.”
> 
> _“Then why did you- oh.”_ Was the voice laughing? _“I see. Coward. If you really don’t want this body then you can just close your eyes again.”_
> 
> She looked at the ground in shame. “Shut up.” She murmured, rubbing her head “This is crazy. I’m talking to a voice in my head. This can’t be real. I hit my head or something. Maybe I’m still dreaming.
> 
> _“Or maybe you really are dead!”_ The voice sounded amused by this. _“Or close to it. But don’t worry, I will protect you.”_
> 
> Rain scoffed at this. “If you’re not the result of brain damage then wouldn’t that mean you’re a monster too?”
> 
> _“I’m quite the opposite I’m afraid . I was a human once, long ago. Before my soul was ripped from my body. Monsters will do horrible things to humans down here. So stay alert.”_
> 
> Something rustled in the clump of flowers up ahead. Rain froze in place. Her heart leapt as doubt filled her. What if there really was something dangerous down here?
> 
> _“Quiet.”_ The voice snapped. _“Don’t move.”_
> 
> The flowers parted to allow the largest among their group to rise up into view.
> 
> “What the hell?” Rain whispered under her breath as she stepped back.
> 
> The flower’s blossom swerved around to face her. It had a face on it. A face that was fixated and smiling at her. There was something off about its eyes but seeing as she had not met many flowers with faces on them before, everything about it seemed uncanny by default.
> 
> “What the hell is that?” She could feel something inside of her narrowing its focus and coiling like a snake preparing to strike. It was like she had a second pair of eyes watching the strange creature.
> 
> The voice hissed in her ear. _“Careful. Don’t trust it.”_
> 
> “Howdy! My name is Flowey. Flowey the flower!” It chirped.
> 
> Rain blinked in surprise. “It…it can talk?”
> 
> The flower laughed. “Of course I can, silly! Golly, you must be so confused. You’re a human, right?”
> 
> _“Don’t trust it. Everything down here will kill you, Rain. _ **Strike first before it takes you. Strike it down**_.”_
> 
> “I don’t know. It seems pretty harmless to me.”
> 
> “Well of course I am! I’m just a little ol flower.” Flowey gave her a beaming smile and a wink. “Hey, someone like you who is new to the Underground probably doesn’t have any EXP or LOVE yet, am I right? I bet you’re pretty scared and in need of some help.” He bobbed his head this way and that, as if expecting someone to step out of the shadows and volunteer aid. When no one came he turned back to her. “Don’t worry, I guess little ol me will have to do!”
> 
> _“Rain. Kill it!”_
> 
> “I have some extra LOVE I can give you to set you on the right track. Here, take these!” Glowing white pellets began to materialize above the flower. They shimmered and twirled in place like bubbles struggling against the strain of their own mass.
> 
> _“Rain…”_
> 
> “Now, just hold still.”
> 
> “ _ **RAIN, MOVE!**_ "
> 
> The pellets dove towards her, leaving a streak of white in their wake. Rain gasped in surprise as she jumped back. There was a brief moment of confusion where she didn’t even realize she had decided to move.
> 
> She rolled out of the way of most of the pellets but one still managed to hit her. It tore deep into her leg, like the stray tooth of a hungry animal. She doubled over and cried out in pain.
> 
> More bullets appeared in the air.
> 
> The voice reached a shrill frenzy in its repeated warnings and this time she agreed with it. Clutching her bleeding leg, she rolled out of the way and picked up a stone and threw it. The flower snaked out of the way and its eyes went black. Its mouth opened wide and it spat out an animalistic hiss. She picked up another stone, this time managing to hit the creature in its horribly twisted face.
> 
> With the voice egging her on, she used the flower’s moment of pain to her advantage. She dove for the creature, heart pounding so hard it hurt. What was she doing? Shouldn’t she run? But no, part of her knew she had to face it. Defend herself. Fight! She had no weapons but it was only a flower.
> 
> With desperate shaking hands, she reached out for the weed. The monster.
> 
> Surely just like any other weed, it could be uprooted, right? Pulled apart. Plucked from the ground.
> 
> Its horrible eyes narrowed as it realized what she was doing. It screeched, jagged maw snapping at her grasping fingers. Yet still she found purchase. The flower managed to weave most of its body out of the way but she still managed to tear off a few leaves.
> 
> “Some other time then.” It spat. Then before she could blink, the ground had swallowed it up again and she was left kneeling in a bed of trampled petals.
> 
> _“Now do you believe me?”_ The voice panted. _“It’s kill or be killed down here. You can’t show anyone mercy. They may try to trick you or make you believe they are not interested in you, but in the end they will always turn on you.”_
> 
> Rain crawled away to assess her new wound. It was deep. Blood ran down her shin and stained her socks. She took a shaky breath and bobbed her head once. “Yes. I understand now. You were right. Kill or be killed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like Rain is already soulless.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> I actually have the whole story already written out and am just editing it at this point so there is an actual ending in place. (And I’m warning you, this story is like 300k words…) I don’t have a Beta though, (Although I would like one) it’s just me and my little sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) trying to do our best. I am incredibly dyslexic and grammar was never a strong point of mine so I’m kind of nervous. I’m doing my best to screen this stuff but I apologize for whatever slips through.
> 
> *long awkward scilence.*  
> *awkward silence intensifies*  
> *awkward silence gets…more silent? *  
> *runs away*


	2. Old Memories/New Reasons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 2 ~~old memories~~ / **new reasons**  
>  Rain finds a familiar pair of shoes.

Hunger clawed at her insides. A ravenous feeling that stirred inside her like a tangle of worms. She had been wandering for a while now. She did not know how long. It had probably been a day or two but there was no sunlight to warm her or starlight to guide her. Just a strange consistent glow like twilight that hung overhead and never changed.

The wound in her leg had been deep. She had asked the voice if she could heal her but the voice said she was too worn out after bringing her back from the brink of death in the first place and had to conserve her energy now.

The voice, which said its name had once been Chara, tried her best to guide her through the place she simply dubbed "The Ruins."

Chara had saved them from more than one booby trap by now, leading them through puzzles she claimed to recall having some familiarity with once upon a forgotten time.

Rain was not sure just how old the voice was. Older than her for sure. Old enough that despite having apparently once known this place, her memory faltered and lead them down the wrong path and into dead ends on more than one occasion.

Rain learned a little more about the voice as they traveled together. She said she had once been a child who had fallen down into the mountain long ago. The first child. She spoke of how she had fallen in love with the place known as the Underground and had decided to stay; only to be betrayed in her time of greatest need by those she loved most. Yet somehow her spirit had managed to escape and cling to some form of awareness even after her body was gone.

She told Rain that many other children had fallen down since then. All of them lead away by a helping hand and a kind smile only to be later slaughtered like lambs later on.

They had been too weak to survive on their own or sustain Chara’s voice for long.

Rain was determined not to end up like these children. In a way that encounter with the flower had been a blessing. It had opened her eyes. And while she had originally feared the voice trapped inside her head, as the time stretched on she began to find that she was glad to have its company.

At first it had felt hungry. Slimy. Cruel and always grinning. But now that she had had time to adjust to the idea of it, it was not so bad. She enjoyed its strength. She took comfort in its bravery and confidence. It was like a part of her that she had always known was there was waking up for the first time and filling up gaps in her being she had been too afraid to acknowledge she had ever had.

She had always been such a shy, quiet girl growing up. The kind of person that never spoke because people talked over the top of her. The kind of person that got bumped into because no one ever noticed she was there. She had grown up tormented by her peers but never found the courage to raise her voice against them.

But now she had a guardian to watch over her even when her mortal eyes needed rest. She had a voice there to encourage her. A voice that listened. A voice that made her feel **strong**.

That voice was resting now. Sleeping deep inside of her. It seemed to need periods of rest quite often and they had just recently encountered a duo of monsters that had tiered them both out. Even though the voice had been there to guide her through everything she still had gotten hit more than once in her panic

Rain rested against a stone wall and pulled up her torn pant leg. The hole the flower had given her was still a nasty looking thing. It would leave an ugly scar for sure but seemed to be doing okay for now. It had a thick scab and didn’t look infected.

Next she rolled up her sleeve to check her freshest wound. A pair of nasty bites; one in the hand and one on the shoulder. The monsters that had attacked them- Chara had called them Froggits- had small needle like teeth that had sank right through her hoodie.

She shuddered at the thought of them and began to try and brush off the dust stains on her clothes. She had killed them with a  sharp rock that now weighed heavy in her pocket. Watching their bodies just disintegrate after they died had been incredibly unnerving. Not to mention it made her worry about how she would feed herself. Would everything in this hellhole just turn to dust in her hands?

A rock tumbled free of its resting place somewhere up ahead. She froze, crouching low among the weeds. A few streets down, an eerie flame drifted through the darkness.  She could just make out the vague silhouette of the flame’s owner, its white face illuminated in the dim light.

“Chara. Chara wake up. There’s something here.” She whispered through her teeth.

She felt the other human’s spirit stir inside her like disturbed smoke pooling itself together. _“Oh? What is it this time? More of those stupid froggits?”_

“Something bigger than a frog. Look.” She pointed out the moving flame.

 _“You can put your hand down; I can see you looking at it.”_ She chided. 

“What is that thing?” She pulled her legs up close to her chest. It was wandering closer now. Most of its body seemed to be hidden by robes but its face was becoming more defined.  Long floppy ears, horns, a more animalistic type of mouth…

 _“Shut up. Just think the words to me so we don’t get caught.”_ Chara paused for a moment, a sense of familiarity washing over them both. _“Wow. I can’t believe she is still here. After all this time... I guess she never went back.”_

“You know- oops.” She snapped her mouth shut. _“You know it?”_

_“Of course. She was family once.”_

_“Family? You mean she was one of the ones who…?”_

_“Of course. Hold very still. If she is still standing guard over the Ruins then we will have to find a way past her.”_

Rain pressed herself as far into the shadows as she could and held her breath. Once again her heart was racing. This monster was so much bigger than all the others she had seen thus far. She would probably only come up to the creature’s shoulder.

The flame grew closer and closer and soon she could hear the creature humming. The voice was soft but strong. A part of her - a new part of her- remembered the song.

 _“I think…. yes, she is going to find us.”_ Chara seemed to be more irritated than frightened by this prospect. Rain on the other hand, was a bundle of panicked nerves.

_“Oh god. What are we going to do? That thing is massive!”_

The voice laughed. _“You underestimate yourself. I think I know what she will do. Quick, take off your hoodie. Hide it under the stones. If she sees the dust we will be in trouble.”_

Hands shaking, Rain pulled off the torn hoodie and stuffed it into the corner among the weeds and placed a couple of stones on top of it.

The humming was growing louder as the flame drifted closer. The footsteps were crunching on gravel and dry grass. Then all at once the humming stopped. Rain’s movements had rustled the weeds too much.

“Hello?” The creature called out.  “Is someone there?” The monster crept closer, peering over half crumbled walls and peeking over bushes.

Rain took a deeper breath and held it when the light illuminated her face.

The figured paused, taking a step back. The monster took in a strange, sudden breath. “Oh!” She said, then with more realization and a warmer tone, repeated herself. “Oh, hello.”

Rain gripped the stone in her pocket. It felt so pitiful and worthless.

_“Easy now. She’s only made of dust like the rest of them. She knows this.”_

“Greetings, human. Do not be afraid. I will not harm you.” Her voice was strong yet soft. It was like a heavy blanket being draped over her shoulders on a cold day. It was so strange to hear something so steady and soft coming from such a creature.

“I am Toriel, caretaker of the Ruins. I come through here every day looking for humans who have fallen down into the Underground. Although, I must admit, I have never seen one wander this deep into the catacombs on their own before. Are you alright?” She stooped closer, warm flames casting strange shadows across both their faces.

Rain shrank away from the flames, every muscle in her body tensing.

“ _Are_ you alright?” Toriel repeated with a frown, “Can you…speak?”

Her voice came out in a croaking whisper. “Y-yes.”

Toriel’s violet eyes darted down to the wounds on her arm. “Oh my! It seems like you have been having a rough day. Please, allow me to assist you.” She held out one large clawed hand and offered her a reassuring smile.

Rain felt herself torn in two by reasoning. This monster seemed nice. There was something reassuring about her voice. But the firelight created strange inhuman sparks in her eyes. The soft fur of her hands hid large claws and her welcoming smile reviled a large, sharp pair of canines.

Rain gave her a suspicious glare. She knew all too well how easy it was for someone to feign a motherly persona.

_“Do it.”_

_“What!”_

_“The Ruins have decayed too much since I was last awake. She will be guarding the gate. We will have to follow her back to her home. Don’t worry. She won’t kill you. Not yet. **Now get up**.”_

Rain opened her mouth in surprise when she took Toriel’s hand before she even realized she had made the choice to do so.

Toriel’s smile widened and her eyes nearly squinted shut. “Ah, there we go. Not so scary now, see? Come along then, I will lead you through the catacombs. I live not far from here.” She tilted her head curiously when she noticed Rain’s limp. “Is your leg injured too? You can still walk on your own, can you not? I can heal you if you would like.”

 _“Don’t let her see that you are weakened.”_ Chara warned.

“No. No I’m fine.” She croaked.

“Very well. Come along then.” She led them back through the way she had come. Past old, elegant crumbling flights of stairs, strange pockets of sourceless light and the occasional half-dead tree surrounded by a moat of its own leaves,.

“I must admit, I am rather surprised to see someone of your age down here.” 

Rain was trying to find her voice now due to a constant stream of instructions from Chara. Her words came out in a hoarse whisper. “What do you mean? If you think it’s necessary to come looking for humans then they people of all ages must fall down here all the time, right?”

“Actually it is rather rare to find one down here.” She looked down at the floor as they walked, her ears becoming a curtain to hide her true expression. “At least, it’s rare to find them _alive_. They usually don’t survive the fall.” She let out a small sigh. “But it’s best not to dwell on such things. The true oddity of your appearance is that you are much older than any of the others. I have only ever seen children fall down here. How old are you, if you don’t mind me asking?”

To her surprise she had to think long and hard about this question.  Just like when she had forgotten her real name, her age did its best to evade her. She knew she was an adult. A really young one. But how young? She felt a flash of panic when she realized she didn’t know the answer.

Toriel mistook her confusion for offense. “Ah, well I suppose it does not matter. We monsters don’t keep close track of our age either. We live for so long and down here without the sun to mark the passing of time, years just sort of seems to slip by when no one is looking.” She glanced sideways at Rain, seeming worried about something. “Are there… more people like you near our mountain? Adults?”

Rain shrugged, trying to dismiss the internal panic of not being able to recall her age. “Not really. Just a few houses down in the valley. A town with a diner is a few minutes’ drive away I guess.”

“Do they… climb the mountain often?”

She felt shame crawl up her throat. “No.”

“Oh. Well, good. It’s probably for the best. It’s not safe down here.” Her voice soured. “There are a lot of horrible, violent people in the Underground. I wouldn’t want to see anyone get hurt.”

The voice laughed at this.

“I guess the last big storm finally opened up one of the surface openings a little more, correct? I don’t think the opening was very large before but if you are here then I guess that’s changed.”

“Guess so.”

Toriel watched her out of the corner of her eye. It caused Rain to fall behind a few steps, a wary eye always trained on her flames. She had never been very fond of fire.

 “So, how _did_ you fall? What happened?”

Rain Bit her lip and tried to think of an easy way to dance around the truth. “I guess you could say I was trying to find something... _someone_... I just wanted to be with them again.” She lowered her eyes at the memory.

Toriel fell strangely silent at this, head cloaked by shameful shadows. She did not speak another word until a house in a lesser state of disrepair than the rest of the ruins came into view.  The windows had a warm glow in them and a gnarled and twisted old tree stood sentry in the front yard.

Rain cast several wary glances at the flower bed out front before Toriel managed to get her to go inside.

“Well, here we are. It’s not much but its home. You can stay as long as you like.  I even have a room set up in the event I find someone like you wandering around, so feel free to make yourself at home. Hopefully the bed won’t be too small.”

 Rain poked her nose inside. Her stomach continued to do nervous flips but thus far nothing overly horrible had happened. She still wasn’t too keen to trust Toriel's motherly persona but so far the caretaker of the Ruins did not seem all that bad.

The inside of the house seemed to have been much better maintained than the outside. It was cozy to say the least. Most rooms were decorated with several plants, golden flowers seeming to be an unnerving favorite among them.

“Have you eaten anything lately, dear?” Toriel called from a few rooms away. The clatter of pots and pans echoed through the halls.

Rain wandered through the living room. “No. No it’s probably been a few days now.” She couldn’t help but feel excited at the prospect of food. She hoped it wouldn’t turn to dust when she touched it.

Chara _tsked_ at her willingness to admit she had gone without eating for so long. _“Careful.”_ She warned.

Rain let go of a fire iron she had not noticed she had been inspecting. Before she even thought to question it she concluded it was dull and thus boring and moved on before her mind had a chance to realize the thought had not been her own.

“Well I was planning on making a nice snail pie tonight. There should be enough for the both of us if you are interested. I usually like to celebrate meeting new friends by making a Cinnamon Butcher scotch pie but it’s so late in the day, it wouldn’t be done until way past a reasonable hour. So perhaps we can save that idea for tomorrow? Toriel poked her head around the corner while she dried her hands off with a rag. “You _will_ stay until then, will you not?”

Rain’s stomach squirmed. She had not missed the forced emphasis on the invitation. It sent up red flags in her already suspicious mind. “Actually I should get going as soon as possible. Wouldn’t want to trouble you.”

“Oh. Well I understand snails can be a bit of an acquired taste. If you really don’t want them I can try and get the ingredients for Cinnamon Butterscotch-”

“It’s not that. I just- I don’t think I should be staying here for long. I have to find my way back home so…”

Toriel did not seem pleased to hear this. She opened and closed her mouth several times. She looked like she was on the verge of giving her some kind of order, only to give up in frustration at the last second. Her words were a little more clipped when next she spoke. “Well, I suppose I cannot stop you. You are an adult after all. But I don’t think you will like what’s out there. So I hope you will at least stay here long enough to regain your strength. I will even pack you a lunch if you are still here by tomorrow.”

_“You shouldn’t have done that.”_

_“Done what?”_

_“Told her you planned on leaving. Her strategy is to keep you here as long as possible. If you’re not going to stay then she will probably do something drastic, something less predictable, to keep you here. She can’t slowly poison you like she did with me.”_

_“Poison? She poisoned you?”_

The voice laughed. _“Of course! What else do you think the Cinnamon Butterscotch pie is for? Stupid kids love sweets. Too bad she tends to confuse Buttercups with cups of butter whenever she makes it!”_ Chara all but cackled.

Toriel had reemerged from her kitchen to find Rain standing slack-jawed and wide-eyed in the middle of her living room. “Are you alright?”

Rain shook herself from her internal conversation. “Yeah. Fine. Thanks. Yup! So fine. Just fine. Yeah. Kinda tired.” What the hell had she gotten herself in to?

“Oh. Well the spare bedroom is the first door down the hall over there.” She pointed down the hallway with a single claw. “Also the washroom is being renovated but so long as you don’t use the sink and make sure not to get water on the floor, you can take a shower if you want.  I will have dinner ready soon.”

“Thanks.” She murmured, wandering off before she was forced to do any more talking.

Sure enough there was an unoccupied bedroom waiting for her down the hall. The bed looked comfortable but she resisted its siren’s call and explored the rest of the house.

 _“Maybe she has changed.”_ Rain offered, trying to convince herself of the idea just as much as she was trying to convince Chara. _“Maybe we have nothing to worry about. Maybe we will be ok”_

_“I doubt that.”_

_“Maybe she’s trying to be a better person.”_ People could change, right? Just because she had never seen it happen in her own life didn’t mean it was impossible.

_“No.”_

She pressed her lips into a fine line but didn’t press the issue and instead checked the door at the end of the hall. She felt weird sneaking into Toriel’s room but she felt it was necessary. She frowned when she found no incriminating evidence against her. No secret poisons or weapons, no creepy items or incriminating documents. She had a few journals but they were just filled with really bad jokes.

She shook her head in distaste and slipped back out of the room. She stopped dead in her tracks and did a double take when she caught sight of herself in the hallway mirror. She scowled at her reflection for several seconds.  It seemed …off.

With a start of disbelief she realized she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to look like in the first place. That was another detail that had been lost to the looming haze that clung to her mind. All she knew was there were things that were now different from how they used to be.

Maybe it was just the lack of sleep that made her eyes look funny. Or perhaps all this unexpected stress just wasn’t good for her posture!

But she couldn’t ignore the feeling that something was very wrong with her hair. It was supposed to be bright red but it had white streaks in it now.  She tried to brush away the white in a fit of panic. “Oh shit, you don’t think Toriel saw the dust in my hair, do you?”

_“I don’t think so.”_

It wasn’t coming out. Not all of it. She cast a desperate look at the bathroom door and slipped inside. “Well just another good reason to get a shower in before we go. You think it will be safe? She won’t like, come in here when I’m at my most vulnerable, right?”

_“You have time.”_

She pulled off her ratty clothes and stepped into the unremarkable tub, hissing when the fabric snagged on the wounds she had hid from Toriel.

Despite having craved a nice long shower for some time now, the experience was less than satisfying. The water on her raw skin ached and stung. There didn’t seem to be much warm water because even when she turned it up as far as it would go she still felt a sense of cold curling up inside of her that the water could not penetrate.

Her heart skipped a beat at every distant sound, always causing her to send a panicked glance towards the door. Fearing that at any moment, she would have to fight a monster while she was naked.

When she noticed the color of the water running off of her it made her queasy. It took a long time to get the dust out of her hair and even longer for the water to run clear again.

The smell of scented soaps was nice. Comforting even. They reminded her of her favorite lilac shampoo. She sank down into the bottom of the tub and hugged the half empty bottle.

Chara’s awareness whipped back around in surprise when she sensed Rain unraveling. _“Hey. What’s wrong? Are you crying? Stop that!”_

Rain wiped at her eyes, a pointless motion. “Nothing. It’s stupid. It’s just... the shampoo reminds me of the brand my parents used to buy. And it finally hit me that I’m probably never going back to that.”

_“You’re homesick? Now? You fell into the Underground because you were trying to kill yourself! Surely what you left behind wasn’t that great.”_

“No.” She sniffed, “It wasn’t. But at least I understood what was going on. At least I knew who and where I was. It’s all so dark and confusing now.”

_“Well, don’t worry Rain. I will get us both out of here. I promise. All you have to do is trust me and stay Determined. That’s why I saved you after all: your Determination. It helped you survive the fall when you decided you didn’t really want to die. As long as you hold on to that will to live, no one can keep us from getting out of here. Alright?”_

She wiped her nose. “Alright. Thanks, Chara. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you.”

***

Chara has to assure her several times that the risk of being poisoned on such short notice was relatively low before Rain could work up the courage to take a bite of anything Toriel had presented for dinner. Even then her hands shook a little. It frustrated her that Chara could be so confident while she still rattled around like a stray wind-tossed leaf inside of her own head.

Eventually hunger trumped her suspicion and she ate the pie. It wasn’t half bad to be honest.  Chewy but buttery. The crust was great.  They had some homemade bread and preserves to go with it too. She probably ate more than her fair share of that.

“Do you like it? I hope it’s not too chewy.” Toriel watched her eat with a warm smile, hands delicately placed before her on the table.

“It’s wonderful. Thank you. It’s nice to eat something warm again. I was chewing on grass and bugs there for a while.”  She said, only half joking. 

Toriel laughed, closing her eyes and causing the tips of her teeth to flash. “Well I’m glad my cooking is better than grass. I’m afraid there is no escaping the bugs though!”

Rain smiled a little. Toriel was an intimidating monster to behold but she was starting to wonder if perhaps she was just lonely.

 _“Rain, don’t let your guard down.”_ Chara warned.

“How do you like the bread? It’s been a while since I have made it.”

“It’s good. Reminds me of Thanksgivings back home. I had a friend who made fresh rolls like this every time there was a holiday.”

Toriel gave her an absent smile while taking up a fork to pick at her own slice of pie. “Oh? How nice.”

“Yeah. It really was.” Rain got a distant look in her eye. “Neither one of us had much in the way of family to hang out with during the holidays so we would just throw a little something together on the side like that. Make turkey sandwiches or something. Watch really dumb holiday specials on the computer, have leaf fights if it wasn’t too cold out, stuff like that.”

“Seems like you were lucky enough to know a very lovely person.” She let out a wistful sigh and propped her head in her free hand. “I always admired humans like that. Like you. You all have so much power, more than you ever seem to know, yet so many of you choose to be gentle and kind, do you not?” Her smile grew as she helped herself to another slice of bread.  “Is cooking seen as a common hobby for humans now? Most monsters are not that concerned with it down here.”

“I don’t know. Depends on the person I guess.”

“Ah. I was just curious. You see, I got this lovely bread recipe for a nice young man that fell down here a few years ago. Smart boy, very kind. He simply loved to cook.” Her smile slipped a little. “He said it reminded him of home.”

Rain choked.

“Are you alright? Here, let me refill your glass.” She leaned over the table with a creak and poured her a fresh glass of ice cold water from the pitcher.

Rain fell deathly silent. She looked at the half eaten loaf of bread and was no longer hungry. She felt sick.

“Dear? What’s wrong?”

“What was his name?”

Toriel frowned. “The boy?”

“Yes. The boy. What was his name. How old was he?”

“Oh. Um, sixteen, perhaps? He was a lanky thing with a head of hair that never wanted to behave. His name was Daniel.” Toriel was looking away from her now. The fire burning in the fireplace sent dark shadows across her eyes. “Did you… know him?”

Rain nodded, feeling that sickness rise into her throat now. “Is he- did he?” She choked again and cleared her throat. “What happened to him?”

Toriel bowed her head. “I am sorry that I must be the one to tell you this, but Daniel, your friend…He is gone my dear. Just like the rest of them. I warned him not to stray from my protection but he wouldn’t listen and, well…” She stood up just a little too fast to be casual and picked up her plate. “You plan to leave too, do you not? Take the same path as the rest? It seems to be a strong characteristic in humans; never being happy with where you are or with what you have until you lose it.” Her voice became a low murmur and her eyes became distant. “Will you be leaving me here alone to dig another empty grave as well?”

Rain looked away to hide the return of her tears.

“Of course. They always do.” She let out a slow breath. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you get some rest? If you truly hate it here so much then I imagine you will want to be gone in the morning. Just like the others. Off to feed the beast.”

Rain excused herself without another word and hid herself away within the calming dark of the guest room. She could still feel Toriel’s words clawing at her back long after the sound of her footsteps had gone quiet.

Dead. He was dead. Her best friend was dead. She had known it for a long time now -he had been missing for years. But for a split second she had been given a reason to hope and now it was like burying his empty casket all over again.

_“She’s planning something now. Why did you have to let your mouth run like that?”_

“I had to know what happened to him.”

_“The boy?”_

“He was my best friend.” Rain drifted around the room, seeing but not quite taking in all the things in it. The walls were painted a garish color that hurt her eyes. There was a box full of old toys from lives long past.

...There was a box of shoes.

She collapsed onto her hands and knees and pulled out a familiar pair from the pile. Her hands trembled. She felt a wave of anger burn its way up her throat. “We were family. There's not that many people that live near the mountain. Not many friends you can make. My parents were violent; his were kind but always away due to work related demands. The walk to each others house took twenty minutes in good weather.

“I would walk up hill to his house at the end of every school day; even when it was snowing. Come Friday I would stay there all weekend.”

She held the shoes close. Black and green sneakers. Green had been his favorite color. They were dirty and singed around the edges for some reason.

“He let me hide there from the arguments. He was really quiet and shy at first and I thought I was bothering him but he enjoyed the company.

“A few years back his family set aside some vacation time in the summer. They wanted to go camping and see the sunrise… He was so excited to spend time with his parents.  He invited me to go with them but my parents wouldn’t let me. We joked about the rumors about mount Ebott but they were just jokes.” She scoffed at her own ignorance. “Jokes that stopped being funny when they missed their return date. I had to be the one to report them missing. They eventually found the bodies of his parents… but they never found him.”

Chara’s grim and curious presence leaned in a little closer to inspect the shoes. _“I wonder how Toriel got these if he died after he left like she claims.”_ Rain felt the sensation of being stared at, Chara’s voice taking on a poorly feigned ignorance. _“Did you notice the burn marks?”_

Rain pressed her lips into a thin line and dropped the shoes like they were hot. She paced the room, her hands slowly turned into fists now. “He would never hurt a fly! He’d sooner give it a home cooked meal and send it on its way than swat it! If he fell down here all he would have wanted was to get back home. And they… killed him!  Him! Daniel! The boy who used to stand so still he got birds to eat out of his hand. They just…”

 _“Ripped his soul from his body and kept it for themselves.”_ Chara concluded, unflinchingly blunt. _“And if you don’t toughen up you will be well on your way to being their next victim.”_

“Did you know him? Did you try to save him too?”

Chara stirred inside of her. A shadow delving deeper and deeper inside itself in search of something. _“Perhaps. I may have I offered him my help. But if I did then he rejected it and went on alone. And I fell back into a dreamless slumber and forgot his name.”_

Rain sank down onto the bed and slowly tried to digest all of this.  Eventually she fell asleep listening to the voice whisper to her. Telling her what their plan of escape would be. They would wake up late at night when Toriel was sleeping and take whatever supplies they could and be on their way. Chara assured her that she knew the way out of the Ruins from here.

So long as Toriel didn’t get in their way they wouldn’t try to fight her. Yet part of Rain hoped she would wake up and try to stop them. She just wanted to have an excuse to fight someone. Anyone. A shadow clung to her heart and cried out for retribution. Somewhere out there was a monster who had ripped her best friends soul from his body.

…How had Toriel gotten his shoes back anyway?

That night Rain watched her best friend die over and over in her dreams. She watched him run, beg, plead and cry for mercy.  He just wanted to go home.

She watched shadowed faces rip his heart out and laugh.

She watched him smile sadly to his killer in each nightmare and whisper the same thing to them that he had always said to her whenever she had messed up.

“It’s alright. I understand. And I forgive you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	3. Betrayal/The good lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Betrayal~~ / **The good lie**
> 
> Rain has a troubling dream before waking up in the snow.

_Her dreams changed over time. She dreamed about hearing the floorboards creak. She dreamed of watching a tall shadow walk down a long, narrow hallway in the dark. The Shadow stopped in front of a thick door with runes etched across its face._

_She hid behind the corner, cloaked in shadows as she listened._

_There was a knock._

_…There was an answer._

_She had to creep closer to hear them talking. The shadow and the person on the other side of the door laughed for a bit and exchanged light conversation. But the laughter seemed to be forced and eventually it slowed to a strained trickle, then a drip._

_Toriel spoke, her voice troubled and weary. “My dear friend, do you remember the promise you made me? Not long after we first met I asked something great of you.”_

_There was a moment’s pause before the muffled voice answered. “yeah. i remember.”_

_“You still plan to uphold your promise, do you not?”_

_“’course i do. i mean, i really don’t like making promises but i  wouldn’t want to peeve off my best knock-knock joke partner, now would i? why do you ask? did you find one?”_

_Toriel leaned up against the door. Her answer was slow. “I may not answer for a few days. I’m going to be busy. But if I can’t stop them, remember your promise.”_

_“you okay, lady?”_

_“Yes. Yes I feel quite well. Like a weight is being taken off my chest. Just… do not worry about me if I don’t answer for a while, alright? Everything will be fine.”_

_She slipped away from the shadows and crept back up the stairs; keeping an ear out for Toriel’s conversation._

_She crept into the kitchen and checked every drawer and cupboard. She was looking for something but it was not there._

_Frustration. Anger. Impatience! It crawled across her skin like insects. If she couldn’t find what she was looking for in the kitchen then what could she use?_

_She turned around slowly. The firelight danced across her hair as she turned to face the solution to her problem. Ah, yes, mother had always loved her fire, hadn’t she?_

_She had an idea. A delicious, ironic idea._

_The dream warped. Only vague impressions managed to cling to her memory for long._

_The sound of metal scraping against something._

_The moan of creaking stairs._

_Toriel’s voice sounded again. She seemed surprised to find her awake at such an hour. Surprised to turn around and find the human in the basement. The old monster told her to go back to bed. If she still planned on leaving in the morning she would need her strength, would she not?_

_Rain felt her throat ache with the harshness of her own voice when she answered in the negative._

_Toriel’s voice began to rise as well. She told her to go back. She had something important to do._

_“I heard you talking. I know what your plan is.” She said._

_There was a brief image of Toriel looking surprised and disappointed._

_After that there was shouting and the familiar pain of fire burning too close to her skin._

_The sound of metal rang through the corridor._

_She saw widened eyes and heard gasping breath as the massive monster fell to her knees._

_“I see.” Toriel whispered from the dark. “I was never protecting you from them...” Toriel lifted her hand and called upon her magic one last time._

_Rage. Realization. Fury! They had been tricked! Trapped!_

_The ground shook._

_The sky fell._

***

Darkness. All around her the world was black. She couldn’t move. For a moment she thought she was lost in the shadows again and began to panic. She called out for help but no one answered her. At least she still had a voice this time. She could still draw breath. But doing so burned her throat and made her cough. The smell of char and the taste of ash nearly overwhelmed her.

_“Calm down. I got you.”_

She felt her hands reach out in the darkness and press against their prison without her ever having to think about it. She could feel the cracks in the stone with her fingers. She brushed aside the sand, causing little pebbles to run down the walls and pool together in her lap as she fumbled around in the dark.

 _“I’ve got you. Hold on.”_ Chara assured once more.

Her fingers found purchase. With a strength not entirely her own, her hands moved of their own accord. She pressed her back against the stones and heaved. With a rumbling cascade she felt the prison give way.

A cloud of dust stung her eyes and clogged her mouth. She coughed violently but she could see some distant light now. Deep in her core the will to live ignited anew. A burning, frenzied desire to just hold on a little longer.

The stones dug into her back and she felt her awareness press against Chara’s in their combined effort.

The stone fell away and let the odd glow of a synthetic twilight seep down into their rocky nest. Before them was a half opened door with a crack in it.

Fresh, cold hair washed away the stale taste in her mouth. At last she untangled herself from the stones and crawled away. Stumbling, coughing and spitting out ash as she went.

“W- wha- what happened?” She wheezed. She tumbled head over heels down a pile of rubble and dragged herself through the open door; landing with a crunch in a mound of snow. She whimpered, having hit her tailbone in the fall.

Her mouth was too dry to talk so Rain resorted to thinking her message. _“What the hell happened? Where am I? I don’t remember being here. Where is Toriel?”_

_“Toriel is dead.”_

_“Dead?”_ She blinked in surprise. She didn’t even notice that she was standing up again and limping back up to the pile of stones. She pulled a fire iron out of the heap. Its dull spear point had been sharpened.

Chara gave it the once over then pulled the door shut behind her, cutting them off from the sight of the rubble hidden away inside.

 _“Why? What’s going on? What happened?”_ Rain looked around, confused. _“The last thing I remember we had just had dinner and were in the spare room talking.”_

 _“You fell asleep. You are quite the deep sleeper. Perhaps she managed to slip something into the jam after all?”_ Chara mused. _“Anyway, I heard the goat sneaking downstairs and when I went to talk to her I caught her whispering to someone on the other side of the door. A sentry I think. Keep an eye out. He may still be nearby.”_

_“A sentry? She was going to turn us in?”_

_“More or less. She seemed to have some kind of special arrangement with him or something.”_ Chara had guided them out into a new, ice-filled cavern and was testing the depth of the snow with her fire iron.

Rain realized she was not controlling her own movements and snatched control away from her partner. Chara released her hold on Rain’s body with a small degree of annoyance.

_“I told you she was no good. Why do you have such a hard time believing me? That’s twice now that your naive nature has nearly gotten us killed. If it wasn’t for me we would probably be dead by now.”_

“Am I just supposed to take your word for it when you say she was going to turn us in? I thought you said she poisoned the kids herself. I’m not even sure she was the murdering type, Chara!”

_“When I tried to get you out of there she threatened to bring the whole tunnel down on top of us. She wanted to collapse the whole passageway so no one could ever escape again.”_

“Why? Why risk herself in the cave-in?”

_“When I heard her talking to someone I went to find something to defend ourselves with. When she caught me out and about I confronted her about it and tried to run. She blocked the way. I wounded her and she tried to destroy the door but I guess she lost control. I’m surprised we made it out at all. Lucky pocket in the rubble I guess.”_

Rain looked down at her ash streaked hands. “Oh my god.” She stammered, stumbling through the snow. She leaned against the cold bark of a tree and dry heaved. Monster food didn’t give you anything to throw back up.

After several sickening seconds of nausea, she resorted to swishing around mouthfuls of snow. She had to get the taste of ash and dust- _monster dust_ \- out of her mouth. 

_“Calm down. We are ok now. We just need to find someplace warm. We will have to slog through the snow for a while but there should be a cabin or two farther down the line.”_

Rain looked at her shirt. It had a big ugly hole in its side. The edges were singed and the skin was tender there. Her whole world felt like it was spinning.

“She _hit_ me?” She yelped.

_“Set us on fire. Or tried to anyway. Lucky for us I used the energy we gained from dinner to heal the worst of it. We will be fine. Now get going. The longer we stay out in the cold the worse off we are going to be.”_

Rain looked back at the door. It looked like a big, cracked tombstone now.

A cold wind nipped at her through the hole in her shirt and she shivered. Even after the wind stopped, its chill continued to sit upon her chest. “I had a nightmare. Toriel was in it. It was real, wasn’t it? That was me seeing you.” She whispered, shuddering as they began to take their leave.

_“Yes.”_

“You were in control of my body. How? You’re just a voice. A spirit!”

 _“Well, everyone is a spirit, silly!”_ She mused. _“I couldn’t seem to wake you and I was growing worried. I promised I would protect you and that’s what I did.”_

“You used my body to _kill_ someone!” Rain snapped, whirling around as if she would see Chara standing just behind her. In the end she just found herself glaring at the faint outline of her own shadow.

 _“I used **our** body to save **us**.” _ She snapped. “ _We made a deal. This is our body to share now and I will not let you waste it because you are **too soft** to **kill someone** that wants to **stab** you in the back!”_

Rain open and closed her mouth several times, trying to find something to say. She wanted to recall the events in full clarity. She wanted to be sure. She wanted to know without a shadow of a doubt that Toriel had indeed been trying to do them harm. Yet the harder she tried to focus in those hazy memories the more clouded they became. The cloudier her memory became, the easier it was to patch up the holes with assumptions that favored Chara’s version of what had happened.

She touched the raw skin on her side. Something had happened to her. She had been burned. But Chara had saved her. Chara had persevered. She had been strong enough to protect them both.

She sighed. “It’s just so much to take in. There is so much I have to try and understand now. I’m so lost out here, Chara.”

_“But I am here to guide you.”_

“Exactly. You can _guide_ me. But you are not allowed to just take control of my body like that! Don’t you ever do that again or I will-”

_“Or you will what? Go on. Tell me your deepest, darkest plan.”_

Her mouth clicked shut. She felt rage and frustration boil inside of her. She didn’t know what she could do. In truth that frightened her. For the first time since she had woken up in the Ruins she realized that she had been so busy worrying about monsters that she had been ignoring the one person who could apparently pull her puppet strings better than anyone else.

A worrying thought occurred to her but she could feel Chara circling around it like a curious hound and so she brushed it away before her shady company could read into it.

“Let’s just find someplace warm.” Rain snapped. “We can reconcile after we get out of the cold.” There was already snow in her shoes, melting into her socks with every step.

Chara agreed with a pleasant purr and the two of them began their long, miserable journey through the snow-caked cavern.

Each step Rain took was echoed by a memory.

_A twenty minuet walk uphill. Thirty when it snowed._

Her nose began to run; she kept her head down and continued to imagine herself walking over to her friend’s house. That’s all this was. No monsters, no caverns, no questionable voices in her head. This was just another walk through the snow after school.

_She would shiver and hold her breath when she passed by the old burned down husk of a cabin that served as the half way marker between their two homes. The old charred house and its surrounding property had been inherited by her father but no one had ever bothered to do anything with the land. So the blackened shell continued to rot and stare at her with the vacant eyes of shattered windows every time she trudged passed it._

_She always got so cold on the way over to his house.  Her winter clothes were  old and faded in color and ended up cold and soggy by the time she she rapped her sore red knuckles against Daniel's door. He would always be there waiting for her with that goofy smile of his. The fire would be going and the air would smell like fresh baked cookies…_

She ate bits of snow along the way to ease the burning in her throat. Her mouth still tasted like bile and ash. She took great care not to look back at the stone door.

_He would ask for help rolling the next patch of dough into cookies then chide her about eating more than she ever bothered to put on the tray. He warned her that one day the raw eggs were going to make her sick but they never did and she always talked him into licking the bowl with her in the end._

The cold made her skin itch. Her bones started to ache. The snow was up to her shins and her sneakers provided little protection from the slush that got packed down against her socks where it slowly began to melt. She retreated deeper into the memory for warmth.

_She would convince him to watch horribly dubbed anime with her. She thought it was an art- he thought it was awful. But he would suffer through it anyway. Then they would play games together. Tabletop, video, computer. He always used cheat codes and mods while she insisted on doing everything the hard way._

The wind was nipping at her now. She couldn’t feel her nose.  Her hair was wet with slush.

The forest was eerily quiet. The closest thing to another living creature that they encountered was a strangely shaped lamp with a silhouette that gave them a heart attack. There was also an empty sentry station with nothing worth taking- just a bunch of half frozen condiment bottles.

Eventually Rain began to talk again just so she could hear something other than the strange howl of the wind playing against the distant cavern walls. “Chara, why is there snow down here? And wind? We are underground.”

Chara made a thoughtful humming sound. _“My guess is magic. They need to keep things cold up here so they can make ice to send to a place called the Core. If they didn’t the Core would overheat and explode or something. But even before that I think this place may have always been cold- perhaps because it’s so close to the top of the mountain? As for the wind, well, I don’t know. It’s a large cavern; maybe they use it to circulate the air or something. I don’t think it’s important.”_

“Why not just make it cold around the Core itself?”

_“I don’t know. Too much work to maintain?  Counterproductive? I’m not the engineer, how should I know?”_

“You know more than I do. You have been down here longer.”

She rolled her eyes at this. _“Sleeping mostly. Forgetting things.”_

“How many children did you meet?”

Chara thought for a moment, struggling to recover old memories half eaten by time. _“I don’t remember how many were strong enough to wake me up. I don’t remember how many fell through the same hole as you. Some of them may have come in from the river along with the rest of the trash. What I do know is that I have gone on this journey twice before in different bodies.”_ Chara though for a moment. Rain could feel her existence tapping its finger against her imagined chin in thought. " _Yes. I remember two distinct faces. A boy and a girl, both young. Long dead by now.”_

“Do you remember their names?”

 _“No.”_   This did not seem to bother her.

Rain’s teeth were chattering now. She was beginning to worry about the cold. Would she be able to start a fire if she needed to?

“If no one has managed to escape yet, why are you so sure I will be any different?”

_“Well everyone who has ever fallen down here has been a child. I think your friend was the oldest person to get stuck down here aside from yourself. Humans are stronger than monsters but children have not reached their full potential yet, so children are easier for monsters to kill.”_

Rain was suddenly presented with the internal image of a brooding shadow crossing its arms as Chara spoke to her. “ _I tried to guide them to freedom anyway. I had hoped to finally feel the true sun on my face again if I could just get them back safely. But they were too small. Too afraid. **Too blind**. The Underground eventually broke them. They hurt too much and they eventually gave up and I couldn’t keep healing them. In the end I was always forced back into a dreamless sleep where my memories fell away like rot.”_

Chara brightened, her cloudy existence seeming to become much more cheery all of a sudden. _“But you? You are stronger. **Better** **.** You're still scared, I can feel it. But I can teach you. And as you learn to do the things I teach you, I will grow stronger too. I will be able to remember more. Then we can finally see the sunlight again.”_

A tentative smile managed to manifest itself despite Rain’s chattering teeth. The thought of warm sunlight seemed nice right about now.

She didn’t really know what she would do with herself after all this but if she could make it through this then all those surface problems she had been running away from wouldn’t seem as insurmountable as before, right?

 _“That’s right!”_ Chara encouraged, _“Mundane human problems don’t seem so bad now, do they? When you get back you will be known as Rain: the woman who fought monsters and won! Everything else will seem like child’s play after that, wont it?”_

Rain’s smile grew a bit more. She managed to endure the cold a little easier now. It wasn’t so much that the cold didn’t touch her; she just didn’t let it stop her. Chara wouldn’t let it stop her.

They were determined to survive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	4. Kind/Harmless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 4 ~~Kind~~ **Harmless**  
>  Rain encounters everyone's favorite skeletons and Chara find Sans's observation skills concerning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we go. Four chapters to start things off with. I think that will be all for a while. I will probably update Saturdays and Tuesdays from here on out. Thanks for reading!

Chara seemed to be wary of something. The sensation was like that of a dog perking up its ears at a strange sound. Rain found her eyes straying more than once thanks to the detached predatory desire to peel back the forest’s shadows and see what was hiding in them.

“What’s wrong?” Rain whispered.

_“We are being followed. Watched.”_

Rain felt her heart skip a beat. She tried to stop and look around but her head would not turn. It was like a hand had taken her by the chin and forced her to look straight ahead.

 _“ **Don’t stop** to and try to **look** at it!” _ Chara snapped.

They both tightened their grip on the fire iron. Its handle was cold but its weight remained comforting. At least this time she would not be defenseless. She didn’t want to think about how things would go if all she could do is throw snowballs at whatever this thing was.

_“It’s moving. Stay calm.”_

“Do you think it’s the guard?”

_“ **Shut up**. Just think the words. I’m not sure. It doesn’t sound like the ones I have encountered before. Usually they employ huge dogs to guard this point because their fur is great for the cold weather.”_

Rain could hear the snow crunching behind them now. It sent shivers down her spine. She gripped her fire iron until her knuckles were white. Images of a massive werewolf twice her size kept coming to mind. A feral beast holding a long sword and dripping hot flecks of steaming drool into the snow plagued her imagination.

 _“Alright. **Stop**.” _ Chara ordered. Rain’s feet sunk into the snow and her knees locked up. She nearly tripped due to the sudden change.

The footsteps continued to creep ever closer.

With a final messy crunch their stalker stopped directly behind them. A low voice droned at their back. “human. turn around. don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

Ever so slowly they shuffled around to face the voice.  Rain was certain the monster could hear her knees shaking.

She was surprised to find that her stalker was not in fact looming over her as she had feared but instead several inches below her eye level. She couldn’t see his face because his head was bowed and the hood of his coat was up but his hand was extended.

She was easily a head taller than the broad shouldered creature in the blue. Hell, she could probably escape him by going on any amusement park ride with a height requirement. But that didn’t stop her heart from beating like the wings of a frightened hummingbird when she saw him.

_“Accept his handshake and be ready.”_

Rain reached out and shook the monster’s hand. She flinched in surprise when a sloppy farting noise pierced the chilly silence the moment their hands touched. She drew back with a start when she felt cold bony fingers brush against hers.

The figure lifted his head and she got her first good glimpse under the hood. For a brief moment she thought she saw a flicker of blue before she realized she was looking straight into the eye sockets of a skeleton. His already grinning face seemed to somehow widen and something deep within his sockets blinked.

She reacted poorly to this but Chara glued her mouth shut, causing her scream to come out as more of a gulping whimper. Her imagination ran wild with the thought of Grim Reapers.

The Skeleton chuckled, choosing to be oblivious to her reaction. “the ol' whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it’s always funny.”

Rain remained frozen, locked in internal combat. _“Well it’s not a dog.”_ Rain managed.

 _“Curious. I don’t remember ever seeing him around here before. He must be new.”_ Chara was still gripping the fire iron.

_“Do you think he’s one of the guards?”_

Both entities looked him up and down. Old blue coat, a faded sweater, pants that were way too short for the current tempter and of course, the crowning glory of this ridiculous sight, a pink pair of fuzzy slippers adorning his feet.  He was looking at them expectantly now, starting to notice their awkward silence. “hey, that’s uh, that’s your cue to laugh.”

 _“No. No he’s not a guard. He couldn’t be. If he was we would be dead by now.”_ Their grip on the fire iron relaxed a bit.

 _“You let him just walk up to us knowing we would be dead if he_ was _a guard?”_ Rain mentally shrieked.

Chara scoffed. _“I would have had your back.”_

The skeleton’s smile fell a little. “or, uh, emote at all?”

Rain and Chara were too wrapped up in their own conversation to hear him. He scuffed the ground and muttered. “gee lady; you sure know how to pick em, huh?”

One of them noticed this comment and blinked. Rain had a hard time deciding which one of them actually ended up speaking. “What’s that?”

He shrugged. “eh, not important. its fine, everyone has their own sense of humor. say, you’re a human, right?” His smile returned upon having gotten a visible reaction out of them at last. He rolled his eyes off to the side. “that’s _hilarious_. my names’ sans. sans the skeleton. i’m actually supposed to be on watch for humans right now,” he leaned forward and much to Rain’s surprise, confusion and slight horror, he winked. “but, y’know, i don’t really care about capturing anybody.”

_“So what do we do now? We don’t have to hurt him if he’s not a guard, right?”_

_“I don’t know. I have never seen him before. I don’t know what he is capable of yet. If anything he could still run off and tell someone.”_

Rain felt her grip try to tightening again. _“No!”_ She snapped, forcing Chara’s grip to loosen. _“I’m not letting you handle this one. Not after what happened with Toriel. We try this one my way. I am in control and unless someone flat out attacks us it will **stay** that way. ”_

A rattling sigh like a cold fall breeze washed over her mind. She nearly dropped the fire iron when Chara released her control over Rain’s hand. _“Fine. May as well. I don’t know enough about this guy to help you anyway.”_

Sans cleared his nonexistent throat to try and regain her wandering attention again, earning another weird look from the both of them. “now my brother on the other hand, Papyrus, he’s a human hunting _fanatic_!” Sans glanced behind them and waved to someone. “hey, actually, i think that’s him over there. i have an idea, follow me.” He slogged past them, pink slippers kicking up puffs of loose snow as he went.

_“Should we…follow him?”_

_“I thought you said you didn’t want my help?”_

Sans looked back at them and waved them on. “you coming or not? don’t worry, i won’t let anything bad happen to you. if you play along i’ll even point you towards the nearest town when we are done.”

Rain peered farther down the road. Sure enough not too far ahead the silhouette of another figure could be seen approaching down the long snow laden path.

Rain cursed Chara’s sass under her breath and stumbled after Sans. She felt like a toddler that had just been pushed out onto a skating rink without anything to hold on to.

“that’s him. quick, go hide behind a tree or something.” He nodded to the tree line and gave them a reassuring wave.

Rain plodded off into the trees and hid under the thick evergreen umbrella of a pine, clutching her makeshift weapon close to her chest and shivering.

While they both tried to keep their teeth from chattering too much, the sounds of another approaching monster grew louder and the once distant shape began to take form. The wind whipped his scarf back and forth behind the new monster like a tattered banner. He was tall. Much taller than Sans or Rain. Taller even than Toriel had been. He wore a well-polished silver-white piece of chest armor and red gloves. He had knee high boots with pointless metal buckles on them that Rain was instantly jealous of when she saw how easily they kept the snow out. Her own shoes had become so wet that they made gross sloshing sounds every time she took a step.

By now it came as little surprise that this being who she assumed to be the brother Papyrus, was also a skeleton. A much more intimidating one.

“Sans!” He shouted over the wind, marching ever closer.

Sans turned around to lean against the nearest tree. “sup, bro?”

“You know what’s ‘sup’ brother! It’s been eight days and you still have not re-calibrated your puzzles! What if a human comes through here? You’re not even at your station! What are you doing?”

Rain smiled despite herself. Papyrus had a voice that reminded her of a cheesy villain from an old cartoon her dad used to watch.

Chara hushed her before she could make any audible laughter. _“Watch and observe. Try to understand them so we will have a better idea of what to do if they cause us trouble later on.”_

Beyond their little hideout, the conversation between the two skeletons carried on. “oh i’m just staring at this tree line. it’s pretty great, want to come see?”

Papyrus put his foot down. “No! Sans, we don’t have time for that right now! I appreciate a well maintained tree line as much as the next guy but we have work to do! What if a human comes through here? We must be ready. I have to be the one to find them. I _must_ be the one!” His expression softened a little. “Sans, it’s the only way they will let me into the Royal Guard. This sentry point is important to me.”

 _“Well that’s just great.”_ Rain and Chara thought in unison. A human hunting fanatic. How fun!

“really? that important?” Sans snickered. He looked over his shoulder and Rain made eye contact from her hiding spot.  Both Chara and Rain frantically shook their head, begging him to keep his mouth shut.

“Of course. Haven’t you been listening at all?”

 “sorry bro, guess i have been being kind of a-”

“Don’t say it.”

“ _numbskull_?” He winked at Papyrus over his shoulder.

“I told you not to say it!”

“well if i’m not a numbskull then i guess that means i must be a total _bonehead_ , right?”

“Sans!”

“come on, i can see you smiling.”

“I am and I hate it!”

Chara gave Rain a mental poke. _“Seeing as this new guy is some sort of weird fanatic and his brother is just using us as a toy, unless you would like me to crack his skull open for you perhaps we should try to get out of here while they bicker?”_

Rain pushed herself away from the tree and nodded, already exasperated by the encounter. _“Agreed.”_

“hey, i have an idea.” Sans was smirking at the tree line again. “maybe something over there under that tree will help you get into the royal guard.”

“Sans, I don’t have time for this!”

“you sure?”

“Yes.” Papyrus was brushing snow off of his shoulders with obvious care and readjusted his orange scarf with a great heir of self-importance. “If you are not going to go fix your puzzles then I will have to fix them for you. If you really want to help me then you will stop staring at those beautiful trees and go put a little more… _backbon_ e, into your work!” He spun around on his heels and marched off; destroying any bite the remark may have had by laughing at his own horrible pun.

“nice one, bro.” Sans called at his back.

Papyrus waved a hand in farewell without looking back; one final “nyeh” of laughter echoing through the forest while his scarf danced against the wind in rhythm with the crunch of his footsteps.

Sans turned around and called back to Rain. “alright, it’s safe to come out now. that was pretty funny, wasn’t it?”  He approached Rain’s hideout and his smile began to slip. She had managed to get up and put several yards between them; leaving an obvious trail of disturbed snow in her wake.

 _“He’s following us.”_ Chara warned in wary annoyance when Sans entered the tree line in search of them. She did not seem to know what to make of the skeletons yet and this annoyed both of them.

Rain kept her head down and marched, always trying to  keep a tree between herself and Sans. She was worried that someone was destined to get hurt if he kept following her but she wasn’t sure who that someone was.

“Let’s just keep our head down. Maybe he will realize we are not interested and just leave us alone.”

As if the universe itself wanted to assure her that that was not how things were going to go down, she heard Sans calling her the second she finished talking.

“hey lady, wait up!” He was coming after them at a semi determined pace; his stupid slippers kicking up snow behind him. Eventually the benefits of not having the basics of a human body weighing him down in the snow overpowered Rain’s sluggish march.

“where are you going? it’s going to take you all day to get to snowdin if you go this way.”

“Leave us alone.”

“us?” Sans paused for half a step to gawk at her. “you got a ghost friend out here or something? buddy, there’s only one set of tracks and they’re yours. you sure you’re feeling okay, pal?”

“I’m fine.”

“look, i’m sure this is a lot for you to take in; recently fallen and all. maybe it was insensitive of me to play with you like that. but you don’t have anything to worry about. Papyrus isn’t dangerous. even if he tries to be.”

“I don’t want to deal with this Royal Guard of his right now. I just want to go home.”

Sans thought for a moment. He was taking on at a leisurely pace now, always two steps ahead and in her way just enough to force her to adjust her path.

“look, i don’t know much about humans but most monsters don’t like the cold. and by the looks of it neither do you.” His eyes darted to the charred hole in the side of her shirt and she quickly tried to hide its burnt edges with a cold hand as a new wave of guilt washed over her.

Both entities watched Sans closely, paranoid that he may somehow make the connection between the singed edges and Toriel.

“that’s a big hole in your shirt. how’d you get it? looks burnt.”

“I slept too close to a fire.”

“really?” He smiled, amused by this. “wow lady, i gotta give you credit for your survival skills.”

“Shut up.” She huffed.

“no, really. i’m surprised you were able to get anything to ignite at all out here. soggy evergreen trees are tough customers. especially for someone who can’t use magic.”

Chara caused her to smirk against her will. She seemed amused. _“The cheeky shit knows we're lying.”_

“so how long have you been out here anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

He seemed to be considering something again. Rain tried to avoid looking at that black, grinning gaze of his but something kept pulling her back to it. There was a little voice, an instinct in the back of her head making her eyes dart into their corners so that she could always keep an eye on him even when she wanted to look away.

She sensed the subtle changes in his expressions. Curiosity, friendliness, doubt. Something else was hiding behind that grin too. What was it? Cunning? Evil? Fear?

 _“Oh come_ on _Rain.”_  Chara was amused again. Apparently she was starting to dismiss Sans as a physical threat, even if his awareness continued to make her wary. _“Look at him. Of all the things you should be afraid of out here you choose this guy? I don’t think even he takes himself seriously. As long as he doesn’t blab I don’t think he’s big enough to be much trouble. We should be more worried about his brother.”_

_“I wish he would just leave us alone.”_

San’s coat rustled as he pulled it off. Rain nearly walked right into it when he held it out to her. “here.”

She took a step back and blinked in surprise. She looked at the inviting blue coat held out before her and then looked at Sans like she was trying to understand a confusing question asked in a foreign language. She studied him, brow furrowed and wary. He still had that friendly look in his eye, although it appeared to be more concerned than before.

“What?” She finally managed to squawk.

“here. you can borrow it. i mean, the wind blows _right through_ _me_ but i think between the two of us you need it more than i do.”

She kept her eyes locked on his when she accepted the coat, wary of some sort of trick.  She managed to mumbled a “thank you” despite her suspicion.

“don’t sweat it.”

She put on the coat. To her surprise it was vaguely warm. She sighed with relief and zipped herself up tight and tugged the hood up over her eyes. That was a little better. At least it wasn’t as obvious she was human now. “Really, thank you. I mean it. It’s…  been a rough day.”

He shrugged. “its fine. i get it.” It was now that he looked down the road and Rain realized that the casual way he had been in there way just enough to force them to step around him had slowly adjusted their course so that they were right up alongside the road again.

 “welp, i can see that you don’t really want me sticking around. so i guess i will let you go now. i need to go meet up with my brother again anyway. good luck getting to wherever it is you're trying to go. just keep in mind what i said before: Papyrus is not dangerous. even if he tries to be. he’s never seen a human before so seeing you might just make his day.” He stepped back out onto the road and waved goodbye. “he guards the fastest route to snowdin so if you change your mind and head our way i will be sure to keep an eye socket out for ya.” He winked again and turned on his heels, leaving in the wrong direction without another word.

Rain stuck her hands deeper inside her newfound coat pockets. She felt sticky wads of plastic inside. With a grimace she pulled out several crumpled ketchup packets. One of them had sprung a leak and covered her hand in red. “Ew.” She discarded the packets and wiped her hand in the snow. “So, now what? Which way do we go?”

Chara sighed. _“Well I suppose we_ do _need to get you to Snowdin. I can protect you from the cold for a while longer but sooner or later we will need to find someplace warm to rest. I can probably find a safe place for us to hide in town if I have to. I guess Sans seems harmless enough. So as long as he keeps his mouth shut we should be ok. Whether or not he is telling the truth about his brother on the other hand, I have yet to decide.”_

“Sans seemed nice.” Rain agreed as she picked at the coat.

_“Well, so did Toriel and look what happened there. Keep your head down and just hope we don’t run into any real Royal Guardsmen. Once we pass Snowdin we will have a much better chance of getting out of here alive.”_

Rain smiled a little despite herself. “Alright then. Let’s go.”  They resumed their dreary march with their head bowed to the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	5. Sleeping/Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Sleeping~~ / **Dead**
> 
> Rain encounters a blue attack for the first time and freaks out a little. Sans does observant Sans things and Chara still doesn't like that.

Sure enough they encountered the skeletons again before long. The two of them seemed to be arguing about what kind of puzzles were hardest when they arrived. Amidst their argument Sans spotted Rain lurking back among the tree line and waved her forward.

With some reluctance she stepped out into the open, cutting off Papyrus’s argument mid-sentence. He looked at her, then to his brother, then back to her again. He did this a few more times until Rain was certain his head was spinning like a top. Chara’s amused laughter rattled around inside her head and made her ears ring.

Papyrus grabbed his brother by the sleeve and turned them both around. The wind carried his overly loud whisper to them despite his attempts at subtly. “Sans, oh my god! What’s that over there?”

They both looked back over their shoulders.

“i think that’s a rock, bro.”

“Oh.”

“but wait, what’s that in front of the rock?”

Papyrus looked up again, eyes peering out over the folds of his orange scarf before he ducked back down. “Oh my god! Is that? Is that a _human_?”

Sans chuckled. “yup.”

Papyrus stood up so fast it looked like an unseen force had snapped him to attention. “Oh my god! Wait, isn’t that your coat? Why is it wearing your coat?”

Sans shrugged.

Papyrus dismissed this in his frenzied excitement. His limbs seemed to want to do several things all at once but since no agreement could be reached between them, he just sort of vibrated excitedly in place. “Oh my god! Sans, I finally did it! Undyne’s gonna- I will finally be able to- I’m going to be so _popular_! Popular! Popular!” All the pent up energy finally broke free and Papyrus practically started bouncing in his boots.

Rain took an uncertain step back but Sans gave her a reassuring head bob.

 _“Aw. Isn’t he just precious?”_ Chara mused in some sinister shade of black. _“I guess he doesn’t look so tough after all.”_

Papyrus finally seemed to realize the weird look he was getting and composed himself, clearing his possibly nonexistent throat and striking a heroic pose that maximized the impact of his wind tugged scarf. “Ahem, human! You shall not pass this area! For I, the great Papyrus, will stop you! I will then capture you and you will be delivered to the capital! Then!” He paused, rubbing one gloved hand against his chin. “Then… well, I actually don’t know what happens after that.”  They locked eyes across the icy distance and Papyrus became somewhat serious again.  “In any case, continue only if you dare!” He made some sort of gesture with his hand that was either supposed to be perceived as threatening or mysterious.Then he spun around eventually vanished into the swirling mists of the blizzard up ahead. His dramatic exit being somewhat compromised once again by the high pitched giddy laughter he emitted as he went.

Once again they found themselves alone with Sans, who was still looking off in the direction his brother had gone. “well, that went well. don’t sweat it, lady. like i said, i’ll keep an eye socket out for ya. just keep to the road and you will be in snowdin in no time.” He didn’t wait for any sort of reply before he left this time.

Rain was liking the sound of all this less and less but Chara and Sans were right, if she didn’t get to town soon she would be in trouble. She didn’t know what exactly she would do once she got there- surely the whole population would be thrown into a frenzy by her arrival. But maybe she could managed to steal some food and sleep in someone’s garage long enough to regain some energy.

So with her head bowed against the wind, she marched on. She couldn’t feel her toes or her nose, even though she knew it was running. She was getting tired of this. She just wanted to go home. She just wanted to see her own bed again.

_“It’s ok Rain. We will be home soon enough. Just stay Determined.”_

They began to see small traces of civilization pop as they went. The snow on the path became packed down into slick sheets of ice in some places thanks to foot traffic. A few small shacks and unoccupied sentry stations showed up now and again but no one seemed to be around and the doors were locked.

Then they began to see fresh paw prints that sank deep into the snow. Some of them bigger than Rain’s hand.

_“This isn’t good. That’s a guard dog print. It’s fresh. The snow has not filled it in yet. Be careful”_

They could hear a few distant howls now and again as the day stretched on. Sometimes the howls were close by, other times they were nothing more than a distant echo. 

So far there were no other signs of the skeletons. Rain began to wonder if perhaps they had gone off to raise the alarm and get the real guards.

They were walking past what they assumed to be another deserted dog house when they heard the sound of a blade being drawn.

Rain spun around and froze. A large black and white dog stepped out from his hiding place behind the house, some sort of oddly shaped cigar clenched in his yellowed teeth. The creature was walking upright like a man, ears twitching in the wind.

“Did something move?” He grunted, flicking the cigar butt out into the snow and drawing his second blade. He sniffed the air. “Hello? Is someone there?”

Rain watched the dog inch closer, still sniffing the air. Either monster dogs did not have the same sense of smell that their over world counterparts had, or the stink of his own cigar smoke was throwing him off. Regardless, he was creeping closer.

 _“Don’t move.”_ Chara warned. “ _Do you see it? Look at his eyes.”_

The dog was stooping low to the ground now, reaching out to feel the shape of their footprints a few yards back and smelling them. When he looked back up Rain saw that his eyes were full of fog and stars. Cataracts. He was nearly blind.

Despite this, he still seemed to recognize their out of place shape among the nearby foliage. He stalked forward, feeling out each step and holding his blades at the ready. “I know you are there. Show yoursmelf!”  He was within arm’s reach of them now. His blade began to glow blue as he drew it back for a strike.

Rain gasped and tried to lunge out of the way.

 _“ **Don’t move.”**_ Chara ordered.

Rain’s limbs locked in place. She squeezed her eyes shut as the blade swung towards her.

She felt something pass through her. The feeling was weird and hard to describe. It was like feeling the wind pass under her skin. She opened her eyes  just in time to watch the second blade pass right through her. In a rush of panic she tried to run. She tried to scream. Her mind reeled at the sight of such an image but Chara kept her still and quiet, whispering in her ear. 

_“When something glows blue like that it will pass through you if you don’t move.”_

The dog sniffed again, leaning forward to squint at them. “Sans? Is that you? Damn it son, you know I can’t see worth a damn. Why do you always have to prank me like this? For a second I thought you were a-”

A strong gust of wind chose that particular time to hit them; catching in their hood like wind in a sail and tugging it back to display her red-cheeked face and gray-streaked hair.

“Human!” The dog howled, lunging forward with his other blade. This time it did not glow blue.

Before Rain even knew what was happening her arm flew out to block the blow. The sound of metal colliding against metal rang against the trees as Chara brought their fire iron to bear.

The second blade came after them and swung low, going for their legs. They hopped out of the way and endured a shallow cut to the calf.

“Well so much for that!” Chara barked.

Rain felt confusion at hearing her own voice. Then the realization dawned on her. “No, wait! Stop!” She cried, talking to her own rebellious tongue.

Chara drew back her makeshift spear and drove it into the dog’s shoulder. A high pitched yelp pierced the air and he dropped one of his blades.

Chara pulled back, the spear tip strangely clean, and hit him over the head with it. The dog collapsed into the snow.

“Chara what did you do?” Rain quavered, dropping down to her knees next to the dog and checking his cloudy eyes. “Is he dead?”

_“I don’t think I hit him hard enough to kill him. He’s just knocked out. Come on, his house is probably unlocked. Let’s move him inside and get the hell out of here. Just kick some snow over the weapons. If someone else sees us with one of those they will probably know where it came from.”_

Rain did as she was told and dragged the dog back inside his house and covered him with a blanket. She lingered by the door, torn between her own crippling fear of  having been attacked and her worry that they had taken self-defense too far. The feeling of the blue blade passing through her still lingered in her mind and made her stomach turn but she couldn't help but feel uneasy about how still the dog was now. “Are you sure he will be alright?”

 _“I wouldn’t lie to you Rain.”_ Chara promised.

Rain let out a slow breath. “Ok. Ok good. I hope you are right.” She did not notice the strange sound when she closed the door with trembling hands and ran away. But Chara heard it and she smiled. It sounded like sand sliding against itself.

It sounded like dust.

***

They could hear their bickering long before they got there. Sans and Papyrus were working on something on the other side of a frozen pond in a clearing up ahead.

“Ugh! Sans you are so lazy. You were napping all night. Don’t try to deny it, I saw you doing it.”

“uh, i think that’s just called sleeping?”

“Excuses, excuses. You know you could have recalibrated half your puzzles instead.  Honestly, why have you let them fall into such disrepair? You used to love setting traps for humans!”

Sans notice them watching and thumped his brother on the arm and pointed them out.

“What? What is it?” Papyrus looked up from the strange device he had been tinkering with and blinked in surprise. He shot to his feet and brushed the excesses snow off of himself. “Oh-oh! So the human arrives at last! As you can see, in order to stop you, my brother and I have created some puzzles. I think you will find this one,” his grin widened and for a brief moment there seemed to be a strange orange light in his eyes, “quite _shocking_!”

Chara stiffened. _“Oh Jesus Christ he’s going to electrocute us.”_

“For you see, this is the invisible electricity maze.” He was pacing back and forth on the other side of the supposed maze, looking quite pleased with himself and somewhat devious. “When you touch the walls of this maze this orb will administer a hearty zap!” He held a delicate looking blue and green orb up over his head that glinted in the weird light of Snowdin’s day cycle.

_“I no longer believe this was a wise choice.”_

“Sound like fun?”

_“No!”_

“Not really.” Rain answered.

Papyrus continued to talk over them; oblivious to their lack of enthusiasm. “Because the amount of fun you will probably have!” His devious grin shrank into a more sheepish smile. “Is... actually rather small… I think.”

Rain looked to Sans for some sort of help but he just motioned with his head for them to hurry up and get over to his end of the pond.

Both Rain and Chara looked at the pond, then at Papyrus. Realization dawned on them and they both smirked.

They were cautious at first but once their first two steps did not cook them like flies they adopted a more confidant pace.

Papyrus yelped and twitched. The orb he was holding made a loud buzzing noise. “Sans! What did you do?” He shrieked.

Rain continued to inch along unnoticed.

“i think the human has to hold the orb.”

“Oh. I-” He was cut off by another yelp when Rain bumped into another wall.

“Sorry!” She called from across the pond, apparently hitting a third wall as she said this. “Sorry again!”

“It’s alright! It’s alright just- ouch! Just- ah! Human! Hold still!” Rain stopped at his request with some reluctance. She didn’t want to see what would happen if she made them angry.

Papyrus took a moment to compose himself then marched right into the maze. His boots left little trails of slushy footprints behind him. He held out the orb and smiled. “Well, here you go.” He gave her a pat on the head and murmured good luck before hurrying back to his side of the pond where he eagerly awaited their next move.

 _“Wow. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer is he? Think you can toss that thing into that snow drift over there?”_ Chara guided Rain's attention over to a mound of snow that had built up against a bush on the closest bank.

Rain looked down at the tracks of slush. “Actually, I think we could just follow his footprints out of here.”

_“We don’t have time for that.”_

“It’s ok. I got this. It doesn’t look too hard. Look at him. Look at how happy he is. It would be best if we made a good first impression, right? Stay on their good side?”

Papyrus was grinning ear to ear. Well, grinning ear hole to ear hole- more so than a skull usually did. He seemed pretty hyped up about this whole thing.

There was a strange feeling inside Rain’s chest. The image of Chara melting into a pouting puddle of shadow came to mind. She made some sort of displeased sound that bounced around their head. _“Fine. Don’t slip.”_

She did slip. Just a little. Just enough to make her curse while Chara snickered at her; but she made it across nonetheless.

Papyrus held a thoughtful hand under his chin as they emerged from the invisible maze. “Impressive. Quite incredible, you slippery snail!” He seemed to be struggling between being pleased and frustrated. “You solved it so easily.” His eyes narrowed and he scowled at the path they had taken. Once again Rain thought she saw a little orange flicker in his eye. “Perhaps _too_ easily. But no matter, this next puzzle will not be so easy. It’s designed by my brother, Sans. Surely you will be confounded! I know I am.” He closed his eyes and smiled all the warmer, then realized what he was doing and immediately became more serious. “I must go and prepare. Prepare yourself human, for you have not bested me yet!” He practically ran off like an excited, giggling school boy.  He took off so fast across the unbroken snow that one could swear he was defying the laws of gravity or at the very least, thermodynamics.

Sans approached them then, looking off in the direction his brother had gone in. “hey, thanks. my brother seems like he’s really having fun.”

Rain tucked her chin into the warm folds of the borrowed jacket. “He’s an… interesting character.”

“boy, you have no idea.” He laughed. “did you see that outfit he’s wearing? he calls it his ‘battle body.’ we made it a few weeks ago for a costume party and he hasn’t stopped using it since.” He shook his head. “man, isn’t my brother cool?”

“Er, yeah. I suppose that is a descriptive word. That can be used. In situations such as this where it is necessary to describe…things.”

He tilted his head. He seemed to be distracted by something. He was looking down at the snow. “hey, what happened?”

Rain looked down and realized the fresh scab on her leg had broken open. Bright red spots of blood marked her path all the way back to the other side of the pond and stained her perpetually wet clothes a dark color.

She tucked her injured leg behind its counterpart. “Oh, it’s nothing. I slipped on some ice and cut myself on a sharp rock on my way over.”

His teeth clacked together in worried thought. “if you say so. if all this gets to be too much trouble let me know. i'll see if i can do something to help.” He gave her a friendly thump on the arm and parted ways. “well, thanks again for helping me out like this. don’t worry, a sharp tack like you shouldn’t have any issue with the rest of these puzzles. you will be warm and safe in snowdin in no time. and uh, hey, thanks for doing the whole maze. for a second i thought you were just going to throw the orb and walk off.”

Rain could feel Chara glaring at his back. It was a thick pressure behind her eyes. _“I don’t think I like how observant this one is.”_

“He seems nice. Weird, but nice.”

_“Too self-aware for my taste.”_

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

_“Oh, nothing. Come on. Let’s go. I’m trying to stop the bleeding but this is getting hard. Pretty soon you will have to choose between bleeding to death or freezing to death. You better hope that skeleton is going to do more than just wink at us or we won’t make it to the village.”_

Rain lowered hear head and marched into the wind, Chara's words nagging at the back of her mind. The trial continued.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	6. One tells truth/One tells lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~One tells truth~~ / **One tells lies**  
>  Rain gets some rests and starts to realize that maybe not all monster are bad. But when a mysterious warning wakes her in the middle of the night, her escape plans are cut short and she must pay the consequences for having trusted so easily.

Rain pawed at the last remaining bits of ketchup with her last scrawny fry. It was the smallest fry. The crunchiest. The runt that had turned dark brown while its bigger counterparts had still been cooking. It was the last little morsel of her free handout so she made sure to savor it.

She had no money. Her clothes were damp, her fingers cold and her eyelids heavy. She sat on the last cement stair step of the back alleyway entrance to the bar and grill and mulled over her day while she struggled to keep from shivering.

Something strange was happening. Something odd and off color.  It felt like a shadow twisting just at the corner of her eye that vanished every time she tried to look at it. It was a nagging question pawing at the farthest corner of her mind, sitting in the fog where she could not see it fully. A question of what, and why?

Why had all the other puzzles stopped working?

They had survived their trek into Snowdin with only minor injuries. Mostly because Rain figured out that all the guard dogs needed to calm them down was a good pat on the head. But something else had made the trip easier than she had expected. All of Papyrus’s puzzles had failed.

At first she had assumed it was Sans’s doing. With his Cheshire grin and strange watchful eyes he always looked like he knew a secret that he wished to communicate to her. He had said he wouldn’t let anything happen to her and to be fair there surely had been a few encounters where they had been spared a hassle or a dangerous task simply due to his convenient laziness. Yet there were things that had happened that she did not feel she could tribute to him.

She wasn’t going to complain about all of the sudden technical difficulties Papyrus had encountered in his attempts to “capture” her but she wasn’t going to just overlook them either. Some of the puzzles had been bugged. They got half way through them and then they registered as completed, thus removing certain obstacles and barricades from their path to Snowdin.

Papyrus had called it amazing.

Sans had called it clever.

Chara however, had called it curious.

It was that last comment that drew in Rain’s attention.

Things only became less subtle from there. They even came across one challenge that had already been completed by the time they got there. The levers had been switched and the traps disarmed. And off in the corner, near the spike walls that had slid back underground, there was a stone with a crack in it. A stone with a web of vines creeping out of it.

Rain had not noticed it at first but Chara had. It had caught her attention so thoroughly that she had stopped to look at it while they were still standing on the disarmed spike trap.

Once again, she had called it curious. _“Very curious. But why now?”_

If Chara knew something about what was going on, she kept it to herself. Despite all of Rain’s attempts to coax it out of her she remained aloof and deep in thought.

Rain was jolted from her thoughts when an orange flickering light cast dancing shadows at her feet. She looked up and peered through the other side of a door labeled “Fire Exit” and watched as a being of dancing flames looked out at her.

She gave a little wave and forced a little smile.

The creature, she assumed it was a he, stepped outside to join her. His presence lit up the dark alleyway behind the building as the strange lights of Snowdin Forest faded into night.

“Hello again.” She peeped.

He looked down at her, the light making odd reflections in his glasses. Perhaps the ever-burning flames that made up his face danced a little differently in greeting. Or perhaps not.

He crouched down from the top step and gestured to the white cardboard container her fries had come in. Nothing was left but some crumbs and a red stain. 

 She flinched a little at his closeness but soon found herself being drawn in by the promise of warmth. “Oh, yes, it was quite good. Thank you for letting me have it, it meant a lot to me.”

He held out his hand, dancing fingers flickering in a gesture.

She scowled for a moment then handed him the empty container. His fingers wrapped around it; stretching and spreading until black marks began to appear in the cardboard. Soon glowing ember holes  began to eat their way through the container, causing little wisps of smoke to rise up between his fingers. The smell of French fries lingered in the alleyway.

She smirked. “Cool.” She got up and brushed the dirt from her pants. “Well, I guess you have no need for loiterers like myself hanging around here making your business look shady. I will go ahead and get going. Again, thank you so much for the fries. And, um, thanks for not telling anyone.  I’m really sorry I couldn’t pay.”

He reached out and caught her by the arm. She jerked back in alarm but his touch was only warm. He shook his head and sat down on the top step, motioning for her to do the same.

“Um, ok.” She sat down on the step below him and tapped her nails against the handrail; unsure of what he wanted her to do. He didn’t seem to speak much and she wasn’t even sure she knew his name.

He pulled out a cigarette and held it up to his face. She didn’t really see any lips on the guy but he seemed to be enjoying it, even though both ends seemed to be burning.

He was not as hot at real fire but the area was much more pleasant now that he was there. She inched a little closer so the warmth could eat through her wet clothes.

Chara seemed to be resting now. She had exerted a lot of energy protecting them from the cold and now she was sleeping in some deep corner of their mind. So Rain was left to fend for herself for the time being. She was weary, hungry like never before and forced to try and hide and fight off the cold on her own.

At least the fire monster seemed to have taken pity on her. Chara had told her that as long and she kept quiet and avoided the guards most of the monsters wouldn’t realize what she was right away.

A few minutes ticked by. She began to lean up against the handrail more and more. Cold iron felt way more comfortable than it should have in her exhausted state.

The crunch of footsteps in the snow kept her from completely drifting off. She felt the fire turn away from her just a bit when the footsteps crept a little closer.

“ah, there you are. thanks, grillby.”

Rain was pulled from her half sleep by the sound of the familiar voice. Her head tipped forward and she hit her nose against one of the iron bars. “Ow, shit!” She hissed, holding her nose in her hand. 

“heh, you alright  lady?”  Sans was walking down the back street with a takeout bag in hand. He was wearing a black woolen hoodie with the same big roomy pockets in the front that his blue coat had.

Grillby got back to his feet and pinched the butt of his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, consuming the whole thing in flames and then flicking the ash out into the wind. He apparently said something that Sans caught but she didn’t.

“you sure? you could just put it on my tab.”

Rain looked up and watched Grillby’s flames dance while he brushed off his smart black vest.

“alright. that’s very generous of you, thanks. haha, yeah, i probably will just make up for it by lunch time tomorrow.”

Grillby nodded once, adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves and slipped back inside his establishment. Rain watched his flames make eerie pulses of light stretch up and down the hall as he left.

“He seems nice.” 

“yeah he’s pretty cool, for a fire elemental.” Sans jerked his head in the direction of the main road. “c’mon. you shouldn’t be out here in the snow. it’s getting late and  i hear there’s a human running loose.” His grin was perhaps a little more foreboding then he meant it to be but his tone remained lighthearted.

She rose slowly, feeling her joints ache and groan in protest. She brushed the dirt from her clothes again. Little puffs of dust rose from her pant legs and brought back uneasy memories. Luckily Sans didn’t seem to notice. “Where are we going? If your crazy brother has gotten his puzzles to work there is no way I’m going back out there.”

“aw come on i’m not _that_ heartless.” He chortled. “look, i even got you some grub.” He held up the bag. Two black containers could be seen inside. The smell of warm food was a sirens call to her.

He led her out of the alleyway and into the main street. There were not too many people out and about this late but a few children could be heard shrieking to each other down another road. They were apparently engaged in an intense, long lasting snowball fight.

“so, the puzzles didn’t turn out exactly like he had hoped but you still made my brother really happy. a little town like this can get pretty boring sometimes so i think you made his day. maybe even his week.”

He noticed the wary way she stuck to the side of the road and kept her head down and her hood up whenever someone drew near. He gave her a nudge. “hey, lady, don’t worry about it. no one here has ever seen a human. they know you’re out there but they don’t know what you look like. most of them will probably just think you’re a really weird looking monster or something.”

They reached one of the larger houses on the street. It had two stories and a festive wreath on the door. Despite being one of the larger buildings it still had a kind of reserved look to it. San lead her around back to a shed. The walkway had recently been shoveled.

“here we are.” He had to push his shoulder against the door and give it a good shove to force the shed door open.

Rain gave him a suspicious look. “I have seen enough old crime shows to know what when some poor girl wanders into a shed like this, the ending usually involves chainsaws.”

He shrugged. “suit yourself. not gonna force you to go in.  i just heard you were sitting out in the cold because you couldn’t afford to stay at the inn. i can’t let you inside were Papyrus might see you, but the shed isn’t that bad. it’s got a sleeping bag and decent insulation.”

She nudged at Chara’s presence. She stirred into awareness with a sort of displeased grumble. _“I’m still hungry. Go find us more food.”_ Her awareness turned to Sans. _“Oh. What’s he doing here?”_ She looked around a little. _“What are_ we _doing here?”_

_“He wants to let us sleep in the shed.”_

Chara drifted back to sleep. _“So then do it. I’m not afraid of him. I will keep an eye out.”_

“uh, you're spacing out on me again human.” Sans warned.

She ducked inside. It was still cold and the floorboards creaked a little when she walked on them but at least it kept her out of the snow. Half the room was separated by a series of thick bars that were spaced too far apart to be anything other than a nuisance.  The walls were naked save for a power box drilled into the left wall. “What’s with the bars?”

Sans slipped between the bars and tossed her an old sleeping bag that had been left in the corner of the room. It had a few tears in it but at least it was clean. “Papyrus’s doing. in case he ever captured a human. i think he imagined you would be a lot bigger than you are. He put the bars way too far apart.” He plopped himself down on the floor. His bones made a weird rattling sound upon impact. “c’mon, sit down. got you a burg with everything on it.” He unpacked the two containers and slid one to her.

She sat down across from him, still feeling a little wary but his laid back personality was pretty disarming. “Not that I’m not grateful for all this,” She said between greedy bites of burger. It was still warm. Truly this was the most amazing thing she had ever eaten. “But why are you helping me if you are supposed to be looking for humans if the first place?”

“i have my reasons. besides, after making my brother so happy i kind of owe you one.”

“Where did he run off to anyway? I would have thought we would have bumped into him again by now.”

He shrugged. He had unpacked his own burger but wasn’t eating it. “probably off preparing for your final confrontation.”

She swallowed hard, almost choking. “Final confrontation? What?”

“yeah he still has his heart set on capturing you for undyne. thinks handing you over to her is the only way how he can prove himself.” He was drawing a pattern in the dust now, boney fingers making soft scraping sounds against the wood. “so if you don’t understand how blue attack patterns work yet, you better learn. if you see a blue attack you have to stop. it’s pretty simple really. just imagine a stop sign, only blue instead of red.”

“Screw stop signs! I don’t want to fight anybody! Doesn’t he know what will happen to me if he hands me over to the Royal Guard?”

Something flashed in his eye. Curiosity perhaps. “do you?”

She set down the remains of her burger and picked at the sesame seed bun. Her voice was knit tight with loathing. “I keep hearing people say that the king is rather fond of ripping the souls out of people like us.”

“us?”

She quickly corrected herself. “Me. People like me.” She looked up, eyes pleading. “Sans, I just want to go home. I nearly threw my entire life away but I was given a second chance. A chance to do something better. A chance to be more than I ever allowed myself to be in the past. I can’t just let someone take that away from me. I will fight if I’m forced to but I don’t know if I have the heart for it. I just want to go home and sleep in my own bed again.”

Sans sighed. “believe me buddy, i know the feeling. i don’t want you to have to fight anyone either.” He thought for a moment. She wrapped the sleeping bag around herself and picked at her food a little more. She was starting to feel a bit better now. A little warmer.

“look, you stay here and rest, ok? i don’t know if Papyrus will listen to me if i ask him to just let you go, but maybe we can work something out and you can slip past him in the morning. how’s that sound?”

She smiled, a little reassured. “Sounds great. Thank you. Its… it’s been kind of a rough ride so far. It’s nice to know not everyone down here is out to get me.”

“i know the feeling.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “it’s nothing.” He dusted his hands off on his pants. “welp, i best be going. got lots of stuff that i have been putting off. if i sit here much longer, all that determination of yours is going to make me feel like i should stop procrastinating and get stuff done. but I’d much rather just go take a nap so, see ya.”

“Aren’t you going to eat your burger?”

He waved away the question. “nah. you can have it.”

“Hey, by the way, you can call me Rain. If you want.” She interjected awkwardly.

He tilted his head and smirked. “rain… is that really what you call yourself? you don’t sound very convinced.”

Her awkwardness only grew at that statement. She stared at nothing in particular and shook her head. Several flyaway hairs fell into her face. “That’s because I’m not. But until something better comes to mind that’s what I’m sticking with.”

“alright then, rain, that’s what i'll call you. until something better comes along.” He stuck his hands into his pockets and gave her a wink. “good night.”

Before she could say anything in response she blinked and he was gone. For a brief moment she thought his shadow was still there but then even that faded away.

Chara stirred, grumbling with discontent. _“That’s weird. I didn’t know he could do that”_

“Are you sure we will be alright here?”

_“Safer than if we stayed outside. But I don’t recommend staying here for long. We are at their mercy as long as we are here so the sooner we slip out of view the better. Eat your food. All of it. Then sleep. I will keep watch for you. Our trek is far from over.”_

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” She grumbled. She checked the fresh scab on her leg to make sure it hadn’t reopened then finished off her meal. She scarfed it down so fast that she hardly remembered chewing. At one point she just looked down and everything was gone.

With her clothes drying out and her belly full at last, she curled up into the sleeping bag and enjoyed the slowly building warmth within. She didn’t even remember her head touching the floor before she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

 _“Wake up.”_ The darkness wavered like ripples in a disturbed pond. _“Rain, wake up.”_

In the empty dreamless landscape she saw Chara’s shadow, swirling and contorted. Its vague human shape prodded at her from across an impossible distance.

_“Rain, wake up. It’s time to go.”_

She rolled over and groaned. It caused a little trickle of cold air to seep in through the sleeping bag and disturb her. “Not yet.” She grumbled.

 _“You have had plenty of sleep. It’s time to go.”_ This time she felt the entity prod her outside of the dream. She twitched and her eyes flew open. She had been poked in the eye by her own finger.

Her hands flopped down in defeat and she sighed her loud displeasure. “What now?” She looked out of the single cloudy window within her view. It was still dark outside.

_“If we go while it’s still early we should be able to sneak out of here unnoticed while Papyrus is still sleeping.”_

“Sans said he was going to talk to him for us.”

 Chara’s presence seemed tight and restless, an uneasy black whirlpool. _“And what if he can’t get him to change his mind? Come on, we should go while it’s still our choice.”_

“Ugh, what’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Why do you seem so tense? I thought you weren't  afraid of them.”

_“Oh, I’m not. But if you would be so kind as to turn your wandering attention back to that window, then maybe you will have a better of idea what’s going on.”_

She scowled at the window. She had to leave the blessed warmth of her sleeping bag and squint a bit to see the letters smeared against the pane from outside. Surrounded by childlike drawings of smiley faces and flowers, the chilling words: “They know. They are coming” were etched into the frost.

“What the hell?” She pressed her face against the glass and looked out into the night. She saw no one. No footprints either. Just a strange, thin snakelike mark in the snow that vanished into nothing. “Did Sans write this?”

_“No. I think I heard him leave the house a few minutes ago.”_

“Do you think he…?”

Chara’s exsistance shrugged. _“Does it matter?  Someone is giving us a warning. Don’t question it, just go! Come on, go get our spear and let’s get out of here. There doesn’t seem to be much else we can take that won’t slow us down.”_

Rain rushed to take up the fire iron. Her stomach lurched with anxiety. It felt like the foggy letters in the window were pressing down against her back. Her nervous heartbeat became the time-keep for every second she wasted as she fumbled.

_“Quietly, Rain, quietly. We must be quick but if we are loud then there is no point!”_

She put a trembling hand on the doorknob. For a brief moment she thought it was locked but it was only jammed a little. She yanked the door open with a groan loud enough to make her cringe. She poked her head out into the night. There didn’t seem to be anyone around.

She pulled up the hood on her borrowed coat and tucked the spear away where it would not be seen.

Sticking close to the looming walls of the buildings so that the common foot traffic would help hide their prints, she slinked along like an ashamed ally cat.

The cheery town with its festive lights and warm cabins seemed much more sinister now. Their colorful signs and elegant window displays now feeling more like a synthetic mask worn to hide the prying eyes of the predatory townsfolk.

She continued to feel claustrophobic until the buildings started to become more and more spread out, eventually giving way to trees once more. She slipped away from the illuminated town and let the darkness of a synthetic night envelop them.

“I guess we got lucky this time.” She whispered, feeling her breath warm her nose.

_“Looks that way.”_

“I thought I heard A river back in Snowdin. It’s getting closer now. We won’t have to cross it, will we?”

_“Follow it. We need to head for Waterfall. It will be warmer there.”_

“How far?”

_“Not too far. Shorter than our walk from the door to Snowdin. I think I can protect you from the cold long enough now. Your wounds should be gone.”_

She realized the sting in her leg had indeed subsided.

“So what can we expect to encounter from here on out?”

_Well, the Underground has two great extremes. The cold outer ring of Snowdin Forest, which is maintained to supply the Core with ice, and the inner ring of magma which houses said Core. Everything stuck between the two has become a sort of wetlands. See the fog off in the distance? That means we are getting close. The snow becomes fog were the conditions warm up.”_

“Anything we will need to look out for?”

 _“Besides the monsters themselves? Lots. It’s easy to get lost, drowned or have a bad fall. We should probably try to find better shoes for you soon. Something to keep your feet dry”_ Chara thought for a moment longer, considering what else stood in their way. “ _Our biggest obstacle will be the Captain of the Royal Guard. I believe the skeletons called her Undyne, right? The captain killed both of my other partners.”_

Rain’s hands balled into fists and she felt bile rise up in her throat. “Do you think they were the one that killed Daniel?”

_“If the king didn’t do it himself? Most definitely. So you need to prepare yourself for that confrontation now because if we can’t sneak past her our only option will be to kill her. She knows no mercy.”_

She bowed her head. How the hell could anyone expect her to kill the monster version of a knight in shining armor? She couldn’t even pull off a good street fighter combo.

But if these people had killed Daniel… “Don’t know why you think I could stop her but if that scumbag killed my friend then I guess I’m all in. But let’s try not to hurt anyone we don’t have to, ok?” She hugged her stomach. “Sometimes I look at these guys and I feel something weird inside of me. Inside of _you_. I don’t like it. I know you must be really angry with everyone for what happened to you but I don’t want to go around turning innocent bystanders to dust.”

Chara laughed. _“Oh Rain, you keep forgetting how valuable you are. Monsters have been trapped down here all of their lives. You are a one way ticket out of here. Power, freedom, strength- you could grant all of that to someone. Even the kindest of people would forsake their principles for something like that. So don’t be stupid. Don’t let your guard down and assume everyone is an innocent bystander. Toriel wasn’t. Neither was Flowey.”_

Rain wanted to argue the point but she didn’t have much enthusiasm for the subject. Aside from Sans and Grillby, Chara had been right so far. Everyone saw her as something to grab a hold of for personal gain.

Despite the persistent chill of doubt and fear that gnawed at her bones, anger over her friend’s death and her own constant state of peril made her chest tighten with dark warmth. She could feel Chara’s shadow press against that bitterness like someone watching over a dying ember and trying to turn it back into a flame. It should have been unsettling but she only felt a clouded…indifference.

They walked on in uneasy silence for a while. The river grew closer and their path narrower. Ever so slowly their world was consumed by mist. Little flecks of fog crystals drifting across the cold darkness. Their footsteps were muffled by the trees pressing in around them.

They both breathed a sigh of relief when the last festive lights of Snowdin winked out of sight. The town continued to dream on without them; none the wiser.

Then they encountered the one thing Rain had prayed not to hear. Footsteps.

A tall, familiar silhouette was slowly taking shape in the fog up ahead.

 _“Why is he here? It’s the middle of the night! He should be sleeping!”_ Rain wailed.

_“I guess he knew we would try to sneak past him in the dark.”_

They stopped and crouched low, hoping they had not been heard. Had the sound of the river been enough to hide their own footsteps if it had muffled his for so long?

_“Chara, is there another path we can take?”_

_“No. The river is on our left and there is a steep cliff face to our right. We can try to sneak around him in the fog but other than that I can’t recall anything useful. The water is too cold and the cliffs too steep to escape through.”_

Rain tried to creep back; hoping that if she could just slink into the thin tree line she would have enough cover to sneak away. The rumble of the river could hide her footsteps.

Unfortunately Papyrus had other plans. He was wandering around aimlessly while he muttered to himself about something. Faint words like “human, Papyrus,” and “Royal Guard” were all just barely audible.

_“Brace yourself; He’s coming right towards us.”_

_“Shit!”_

Papyrus stopped short, boots crunching in the snow. He straightened himself and looked around. “Human? Is that you? Show yourself and face me!”

Rain crouched lower, trying to make herself an uninteresting shape in the night.

It didn’t work.

“Ahah! I see you hiding over there. Come out. Stand and face the Great Papyrus!”

Chara pulled them to their feet. The feeling of the iron rod hidden in their coat sleeve felt cold and heavy in her grip. How long had she been holding it like that?

“Papyrus, what are you doing out here? It’s late. I thought you would be sleeping.”

“Yes, well, I wasn’t sure when you planned to leave Snowdin and I couldn’t find you to ask so I decided that I would just wait here. The path is so narrow that I knew you would have to pass by. So as long as I was patient, I knew I couldn’t miss you!”

Rain took a step back, rubbing her arm in a nervous tick. “Papyrus, you’re not actually going to try and fight me, right? We did your puzzles. We didn’t hurt anyone.” Chara made some strange internal sound at that. “Can’t you just let us pass?”

Papyrus was close enough now that they could see his expression through the fog. He looked unsure of himself. Rain's heart leapt. perhaps she could talk him out of this after all. “Look, you seem like a nice guy. We don’t have to fight. Just let me pass... please. I won’t tell anyone you let me go.”

He rubbed his jaw and turned his back to them. “Human, I…” He bowed his head. He was quiet for several seconds. “Allow me to tell you about some rather complex feelings. Feelings like, finding another pasta lover so willing to share the joy of spaghetti with another, that they pass up the opportunity to eat it all themselves.”

_“What is he talking about?”_

“Feelings like…the admiration for one’s exceptional puzzle solving skills.”

 _“Wait, was he the one that left that frozen plate of food out in the middle of nowhere? What the hell does that have to do with anything?”_ Chara snorted.

He turned around, his face distorted with internal conflict. “Or the desire that some cool, new person you just met will hopefully think that you are cool too, because you don’t have many friends and they seem really nice!” He smiled a little. Then his smile fell and he visually floundered. “Uh, t-these must be the kind of feelings _you_ are feeling right now! Right? I- I can hardly imagine what it must be like to feel that way, human.” He laughed nervously under his breath. “I mean, after all, I am very great. I don’t ever have to wonder what it would be like to have lots of friends. But I- I pity you, lonely human.” He pointed a dramatic finger at her.

_“What the hell is this guy on?”_

_“Shut up Chara. I think… I think this guy doesn’t really want to fight us. I think he’s just lonely.”_

She took a hesitant step forward. “Papyrus, I would love to be friends with you. Can’t we put this whole ‘final confrontation’ thing behind us and call it a night? C-come on. You don’t really want to fight me. Two ships passing in the night, right?”

It was hard to read his expression in the dark but there was something soft and genuine in his voice. “Human, I would love to... Surely together we would be the greatest of…. of….” His face was falling again; his eyes sinking lower and lower until they were staring down at the snow.  He took a step back. “N-no. No. I can’t do that. It would be wrong.”

Rain laughed nervously. “Come on Papyrus, don’t do this to me. Where is your brother? Let’s go find him. He can help us sort all this out.”

“Ah, alas! I am afraid the canine unit has requested his help in finding their missing member. Doggo has not been checking in lately and everyone is worried he got lost in the snow again. He’s almost blind, so it happens. Thus, we must resolve this conflict amongst ourselves. But I suppose if no one is here to see…”

Chara bristled. It was like watching the spines on a porcupine rising up all at once. It sent shivers down Rain's spine.

“Well, why don’t we both just go back to Snowdin and-”

Chara cut her off. _“Rain, we have to get out of here before they find out what happened to that dog.”_

Papyrus shook himself. “No, no this is all wrong! You are a human! And I must capture you myself!”

_“Chara, what are you talking about?”_

Papyrus carried on, oblivious to Rain’s internal conflict. “It’s the only way _she_ will let me in. Once I capture you, I will finally be powerful, popular, prestigious! Everything I have ever dreamed of!”

The ground around them began to glow with a strange light.

_“Rain, that dog is dead. We killed it.”_

“That will be me, Papyrus, the newest member…”

_“What? …No. No! We didn’t kill him! You said he was just knocked out!”_

“-of the Royal Guard!”

The ground around them erupted. Papyrus had made his move.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	7. It was an accident/She was pushed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~It was an accident~~ /She was pushed  
> She is blue now....

 

The ground erupted before them in a spray of snow. Several bones shot out of the permafrost and began to move towards them, growing taller as they went. Rain stepped to the left, the bones stampeding past her and making deep troughs in the earth as they went.

A second set appeared. She stepped right, watching the bones rise higher and higher as they passed her by. “Papyrus, stop. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m sorry human, but I must do this! Undyne will be so proud of me when she sees you!” More bones passed her by in short rows, marching off to war like columns of solders.

 _“This guy has terrible aim. This should be easy.”_ She felt Chara reaching for control, straining to grip the spear a little tighter.

Rain snarled. She nearly got hit thanks to the distraction. _“I’m not letting you lay a finger on him.”_ She shoved Chara away, teeth grinding together in anger. _“Not after what you did to that dog!”_

“Your persistence is admirable human, but if you will not fight then I shall be forced to use my fabled blue attack!” The world around her began to rumble in preparation as several more unintimidating columns of bone drifted by.

In the midst of her grapple with Chara, Rain had not stopped to think about where all of these bones were going once they dogged them. Now as the rumble grew louder, Rain turned around in hopes of fleeing only to come face to face with what had been going on behind them all along. The bones did not simply sink back into the ground as suddenly as they had appeared. Instead they had begun to pile up. Collecting against one another in a forest of ivory that stretched out around them on either side, cutting off the path the had come from and turning the narrow pathway into a half-moon arena.

“No. No, no, no, no!” Rain ran towards the barrier but the walls were already too high to jump over. Papyrus was boxing her in. Each bone began to grow little hooked barbs to deter her from climbing them as they settled into place; looming high above her head like a cold, uncaring fortress.

This couldn’t be happening. They had to escape! They had to get out! She didn’t want to do this! Why hadn’t she listened to Chara when she told her not to trust anyone?

She spun back around to face papyrus, trembling and eyes wide with fear. “You’re not a bad guy, Papyrus. Right? You don’t need to do this.” She pleaded.

His eyes held a dim amber glow now. His jaw was set tight, his resolve firm but solemn. “You seem really nice, human. But everyone keeps saying that letting you run around by yourself is well, rather dangerous. Besides, king Asgore needs your help to break the barrier! So, I _know_ I’m not a bad guy! Because I’m helping the Underground!” The bones were coming in waves now, growing faster and faster. She had to jump over a few of them. “And I’m sure that after Asgore has broken the barrier and Undyne makes me the newest member of the Royal Guard, I will be allowed to come visit you in the castle and show everyone how nice you are! I’m sure they will let you go once I do that!” For a brief moment Papyrus practically beamed, pleased with his plan.The confidence soon melted into an annoyed frown as he watched Rain slip on the ice and get clocked in the jaw for her mistake. “Human, come on. I am trying to give you a fair fight. This is no time to slip up!”

_“Fight back!”_

 She clenched her teeth when she slipped again and hit her kneecap against the tail end of the next wave. “No.” She grunted.

“Aren’t you going to fight back?” Papyrus prodded.

“No!” She roared, dodging again; coming so close to getting hit by the marching bones that she felt the air swirl around her. The shooting pain in her knee had almost cost her that time.

“Hm, very well! If you shall not fight me then I will use my fabled blue attack! Let’s see how you can handle _this_!”

The crescent moon arena lit up with an eerie blue light. The ongoing rumble reached its climax as several rows of glowing blue bones erupted from the ground. They tore after her at an intimidating speed, churning through the slush and tearing across the cold air just overhead.

Rain took a step back in alarm and a single blue bone grazed her arm. The sensation made her jolt in place. It felt like her blood had been set on fire. She opened her mouth to scream but in her moment of pain and fear Chara stepped forward to save them. She snapped her mouth shut, eased the pain and rooted her feet in place so that she couldn’t move. They squeezed their eyes shut against the stampede; several attacks passing through them like an eerie wind.

 _“That was rather disappointing.”_ Chara mocked.

When they opened their eyes again, their chest was glowing red. “Uh, Chara,” Rain batted at her clothes in panic. Just above her heart an unnatural light was starting to take shape and change color. “What the hell is this?”

The light became a heart, dark blue and wispy like a cloud drifting over the light of the moon. All at once her limbs felt incredibly heavy. She nearly doubled over, grunting under the strain of staying upright. It felt like her chest was full of lead and her legs were bags of sand.

Realization dawned on Chara. _“Oh.”_

“You’re blue now.” Papyrus smirked a little from across the arena, looking rather pleased with himself. “ _That’s_ my attack!”

 _“You cleaver little shit.”_ Chara was writhing now, angry and ready to pounce. But she barely had time to react before a fresh wave of bones came after them. The first one hit them in the side and knocked them off balance, sending them crashing face first into the snow.

_“You have to let me help.”_

“No.” Rain snarled, spittle flying from her lips. “I won’t let you hurt him like you hurt the-” She grunted in pain, a bone rising from the floor and hitting her in the gut. They rocked backwards and rolled out of the way of the next assault, clutching their stomach.

_“Rain you have to let me help! He’s weighing down your **soul**. That’s what that light is. And if something hits it, you could die. If you don’t let me help you doge you won’t be able to do anything!”_

Her body was so heavy now. She felt like someone was standing on her chest, pinning her in place and pressing the air from her lungs.

The bones were rising higher and higher. Coming faster and faster. Papyrus was getting into the rhythm of things now and Rain was lost in the chaos of her own panic.

She managed to pull herself into a kneeling position. A second later she ducked back down when a bone cut through the air and narrowly missed her head, cutting so close that it yanked her hood down.

Papyrus’s words echoed through the fog.  “Human! I think it is only fair that I warn you that should you not consent to defeat and allow me to capture you, I will be forced to use my special attack!”

Rain was starting to pant, her breath spilling out in thick clouds of haze. It was so hard to breathe. “We should just surrender. The bars are too wide in the shed. We can just sneak back out once he’s gone.”

_“The dogs will be looking for us. If we go back to Snowdin with him we will be trapped. Do you really think we can face all of them at once?”_

Rain managed to pull herself to her feet just in time to gain enough air and momentum to  dive over the next wall and come crashing down sideways on the other side. She looked up just in time to see a wall of blue coming for her. She shielded her face against the light and curled into a ball. She didn't get up fast enough when it passed. The next set of bones was upon her. Her only hope was to try and squeeze through the small gaps between each picket but she misjudged the gap. A bone hit her square in the back and snagged on her coat, dragging her back the way she had come.

 In front of her another row of blue bones was rising up to meet her; cold and uncaring in their pursuit. She clawed desperately at the ice but continued to slide backwards, the blue attack gaining on her.

Feeble and perhaps pointless, she felt herself calling out to no one in particular.  “No! Stop! Help!”

She felt her muscles all tense up at once. Her shoes dug deep into the ground with enough force to make her toes sting. She twisted around, arms slipping out of the coat and allowing it to be carried away. She skidded to a halt just as the blue attack raced through her. Her right side burned like fire but Chara bit back their screams and numbed the pain.

When the attack passed, Rain could feel Chara helping her to her feet. _“I will take care of the legs. You control the arms.”_

“Alright.” She panted, wiping a trickle of blood from her nose. “Alright. Together then.”

They stumbled onward against the impossible weight and the burn of their screaming muscles. They endured the blows that came when the ice made them slip and muffled their cries when jagged barbs nicked their flesh. They toiled away under the distant calls of Papyrus, who grew ever more distressed by their refusal to submit or even respond to him.

“Human, once again I deem it only fair that I warn you, I am nearly ready to preform my special attack! Surely you know that you could not ever hope to evade such a cunning and awe-inspiring move made by the Great Papyrus! I ask that you give up now, as I do not wish you hurt you if you are not entirely sure you are ready.”

“No, I’m not ready Papyrus! Please, just stop!” She panted, struggling to find her breath so she could make her reply anything more than a wheeze as she struggled to drag herself to her feet and force her heavy body over the next hurdle. Her glowing soul fluttered and pulsed against her, causing waves of warmth, cold, then warmth again to wash over her as little dark blue shadows and wisps of light blue light swirled around inside the heart.

They crashed over another hurtle, landing hard on an already injured shoulder. She squeezed the tears out of her eyes and kept going; keeping their head down as bones twirled by just a few inches overhead. Ever so slowly they were making progress. They were clawing their way towards Papyrus and away from the wall.

She could hear dogs howling in the distance now.

She could feel the cold steel in her hand.

It was a dull sort of realization that rocked her when she realized she had never let go of her weapon. Now her grip began to tighten around the feeble rod just a little. She was sent spiraling across the snow more than once as she tried to escape the arena, yet she and Chara worked together to get back up again and claw their way down the lane.

The howls grew louder.

The glow at the other end of the gauntlet grew stronger as Papyrus began to prepare his special attack. He did not seem to understand what he was doing to her. That or he forced himself to only see half-truths so he would not have to think about their fate.

His special attack would be ready soon. Any moment now he would unleash it.

There was a mad light of panic in her eyes. Surely if he used this attack it would be the end of her.

 _“You better make up your mind soon.”_ Chara warned, listening to the guard dogs closing in on them from somewhere farther back among the trees.

Rain’s jaw set. Her toes dug into the ground, cold and raw and wet. When had her shoes been knocked off?

She was close enough now that she did not have to shout over the growing wind that had started to pick up at the start of the fight. “Papyrus, please. This is the last time I can ask. Please… _stop_.”

She could see his hands falter in their summoning for just a moment. The amber light in his eyes dimmed and for a passing heartbeat he looked worried. Then he shook himself and pressed on.

She bowed her head. So that was how it would be. “Chara, get me close to him.”

She felt Chara smirk. The dark blue shadows drifting through her soul contorted into the vague shape of a smile. _“As you wish.”_

Chara drove all her willpower into her assigned task. Their legs felt lighter and her arms less sluggish. Her chest still felt like cold lead but the jumps were a little easier now. They inched closer and closer one ungraceful leap at a time.

Rain held her fire poker close. She wouldn’t hurt him. She would be gentle. She would be careful. She only needed to throw him off balance.

Closer, closer, yet closer still. Her body was becoming more accustomed to the weight. Her soul cast strange patterns of light and dark against her chest.

All she had to do was knock him over. He would have to stop summoning bones while he was falling. Then she would just take her chances and run past him while he was trying to recover. There were no walls of bone to entrap her on his side of the lane.

“I admire your determination human, but I must ask that you give up!”

“I’m sorry Papyrus, I can’t.” She said through grit teeth.

“Then you leave me no choice. Behold!”

_“ **Almost there**.”_

_“Just bring me a little closer.”_

“My ultimate attack!”

She broke into a lopsided run, heart racing.  “You don’t get it do you?” She growled in frustration.  “If you capture me they will _kill_ me!” Just like all the other humans. Just like Daniel!"

Papyrus blinked in surprise. His next wave faltered. He took a small step back.

 _“Now.”_ They both thought as one. She lifted her weapon, enduring a wave of blue that burned her legs when she refused to hold still. She brought her arm back, the iron’s tip gleaming in the dim light of Papyrus’s attack. For a moment her soul pulsed a bright blue, so bright that its after image blinded her to the brief moment where an all-consuming shadow fluttered across it.

Her aim was sent askew.

The blow hit him across the neck instead of the shoulder. The strike rung against his costume like a gong.

“I am sorry, Papyrus.” Rain wheezed, head down as she bolted past him.

He stumbled back in shock, eyes widening. “N-no…” He gasped, looking down at his hands. The wall of bones he had built up around them began to crumble.

Behind her Rain heard a strange sound. A sound like sand sliding against itself.

Papyrus's voice became worried and uneven. “Oh dear. I- I did not expect that.”

Chara urged her to keep running but something made Rain looked back anyway. All the bone walls were turning the dust behind them. And as Papyrus looked at his extended hand, he staggered backwards and held the other to his chest while it crumbled.

Rain’s pace slowed, her bare feed grinding raw skin against rough ice and she skidded to an uncertain stop.

_“What are you doing? Run. **Run**!”_

“…Papyrus?” Her voice sounded feeble and distant in her ears. She watched in mounting horror as the wind began to eat away at him, carry away little bits and pieces of his existence. He tried to hold himself together but couldn’t stand for long. He toppled over into the snow.

“Papyrus!” She limped back to him and dropped to her knees. She tried to help him up but as she did so his body started to turn to dust in her hands and her fingers passed right through him.

“No! No, no, no! This isn’t what I meant to do! Papyrus, hold on! I’m sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I only wanted to knock you off balance. I didn’t want to hurt you!”

“Human,” He stuttered, “I-it would seem that I have underestimated you. Or rather… I have overestimated you, in some aspects. Nyeh-heh.” His clothes went limp, a pile of dust left lying in the snow where bone had once been. His skull began to crack as she cradled him.

Her vision was a blur and her body shook with unexpected sobs as her tears splashed against his cheek. “You fool,” she sobbed, “why didn’t you just let us go? I didn’t think this would kill you. Why couldn’t you just sleep in and let me pass?”

“Human, p-please… don’t cry.” He put on a brave smile. “I can see now that you have something dark in you. Something… violent. It was wrong of me not to notice before.  But surely, if you try, you will do better, next time!” The wind was eating away at his face now. “Don’t worry…I know you can do it.” The cracks connected and his skull began to crumble. His last whispered words carried out on the wings of escaping dust. “…I believe in you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She is blue now...in more ways than one D:  
> Looks like Rain was not aware of her own strength. ho-hum
> 
> Fun fact! I spent like two weeks of prep time trying to figure out how the heck I wanted his attacks and souls/blue souls to work. I think it turned out ok. The first two serious fights I wrote were like 70% winging it and distressed wailing sounds- but I get better at it as time goes by!  
> Another fun fact, after I finished this chapter I spent a good three days being sad about killing Papyrus. V.V 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	8. losing control/gaining control

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~losing control~~ / **gaining control**  
>  Rain and Chara escape into Waterfall. it doesn't take long for someone to find them.

She did not notice when she got up. She did not understand what she was doing anymore. Everything was a haze. A blur. Chara forced her into movements she did not care for. She pulled them both to their feet and forced them to stand even when Rain strained to remain behind.

_“There is nothing left you can do for him now.”_

“I should stay. I should stay.” She murmured, pulling against an unseen force that kept her from falling back down. “They deserve to know.”

 _“There is nothing you can do to fix this. Here. Take these. We will need them.”_ Her hands reached out and grasped for something.

“No. No, put them back. I don’t want them.”

_“You need them.”_

She watched herself put on the dusty flame colored boots. It felt like she was watching everything happen from the other end of a long tunnel. “I said I don’t want them!”

 _“ **Take them and be quiet**.”_ Chara snapped.

Rain tried to pull them off but her hands wouldn’t work. Her fingers felt numb and sluggish.

Chara pushed them forward, forcing them into a painful run. Rain tried to drag her feet but Chara refused to let her stop.

Chara filled her head with a constant stream of insistent chatter. 

_“We can’t stop now.”_

_“It’s too late. Keep going.”_

_“ **I won’t let you turn back**.”_

“It was an accident.” Rain breathed over and over again. Long into the night she whispered her apology.

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I don’t know what happened.”

“How? How did I kill him so easily?”

Chara smothered her in a cloak of numbing shadows. She hushed her and made sure she kept placing one foot in front of the other. They marched against the howls of the night guard, wandering through the diminishing fog with their face against the growing wind; their hair dancing behind them like flame and ash. The world became a soggy slush. Frozen earth gave way to mud that stained their flame colored boots brown. They moved onward into the awaiting reeds of Waterfall and did not stop.

Over time Rain regained her composure to some degree and reclaimed control over her movements, if only because she did not like the feeling of someone constantly making her legs move for her. She kept them going well into the daylight hours. Or at least she assumed it was daytime. Snowdin seemed to have had some sort of regulated artificial light that came and went as time wore on but Waterfall was a different case. The light did not come from the sky so much as came from the watery expanse stretched out before them. It was like the daylight was trapped in the water, leaving the crystals overhead to rule the ceiling like stars.

Soon the howls of pursuit were drowned out by the breathtaking roar of  majestic waterfalls that tossed up a cool mist and dampened their hair.

Where the mud did not reign supreme the ground was now covered in a thick carpet of dark green grass or blue moss. Docks and bridges were commonplace here. Old water worn planks of gray wood creaked under each uneasy step, threatening to snap and dunk them into the water below if they were careless.

They did not see anyone on their path. Yet the air always seemed to be filled with whispered conversations that put Rain on edge. Chara assured her it was just an odd quirk of the strange blue flowers that grew in abundance in the area but it still sent shivers down her spine every time she heard one of them speak.

Children laughing, someone crying, odd bits of passing conversation that sounded absurd or unnerving out of context- all of it drifted around her as she walked by the flowers that never failed to produce a fog of words.

There was tall grass and reeds everywhere. When the reeds became so tall and so thick that they could no longer see over them, Chara at last agreed to let Rain rest. Her dark shadow swirled around in Rain’s mind; her presences sinister yet oddly calming. It smothered her emotions with darkness and made it easier not to feel.

They sat down in a little clearing among the reeds where the crash of a waterfall off in the distance helped to drowned out the whispering flowers. Off to their side the reeds parted just enough to let them look out across a large pond of glowing water; the silhouette of Lilly pads turning black against its eerie light.

Chara prodded her. _“Do you see those things among the reeds? The ones that look like cattails?”_

Of course she did. The place was littered with them.

_“Those are called water sausages. They are safe to eat. I doubt we will be getting much help around here so be sure to fill up on them. I never liked them raw but food is food.”_

Rain plucked a few nearby sausages from their drooping stems and sat down in the dirt and nibbled at them. She didn’t really notice the taste that much. Her mind was elsewhere.

Her words came out choked and feeble. “Chara… you didn’t have anything to do with Papyrus’s death, did you?” It felt like a weird thing to ask. The words were awkward on her tongue. But she was growing wary of her partner. She was beginning to wonder just how absolute or subtle her control over their body could be.

Chara snapped into motion at once, feeding her lines she had rehearsed in anticipation for this moment. _“Of course not! Don’t try to blame me for this so you can feel better. You wouldn’t let me touch him, remember? I was putting all of my energy into keeping you upright.”_

Rain picked at her water sausage. She didn’t feel hungry. “So then that was me. All of it… It was my fault.” She rubbed at her eyes. “I murdered him.”

_“You defended yourself. It was unfortunate.”_

Her voice quivered. “I didn’t mean to hurt him! I still can’t believe what happened. I don’t understand how I _did_ that.”

_“Well, I warned you that you would be stronger than anything they have dealt with down here. You just didn’t know your own strength.”_

“But you did!” She picked up a stone and tossed it into the nearby pond. “You lied to me about that dog. You knew I killed him. You knew this could happen!”

_“Rain, I told you, you were stronger. I didn’t just mean there was more you could endure- that line is drawn both ways. You would be dead if that wasn’t true. It’s not my fault you didn’t understand me.”_

“Well you didn’t try very hard to explain it, now did you?” She snapped, voice rising. “You told me everyone down here was evil but Papyrus wasn’t. He was just misinformed! And the guard dogs were ok too, once you gave them a good pat. Sans and Grillby even _helped_ us! And I can’t even remember what happened with Toriel.” She pulled her knees close to her chest. “Chara, I’m scared. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I can feel myself forgetting things. Memories and thoughts are going fuzzy. I’m looking back and questioning everything now. I’m afraid that, well…” She lost her voice.

 She was afraid that the most dangerous creature she had met down here was the one she had let inside her head.

Chara seemed to get the gist of what she had intended to say. _“Rain, Rain, Rain, so naive. So quick to forget. I have protected you from so much already. I have healed your wounds and kept watch while you slept. I saved you from a death you would have brought upon **yourself**. And this is how you repay me? You blame _ me _for this? For_ **protecting** you _? I admit that I will never be as forgiving as you because I **won’t** let them trick me again. So if we must be at odds  over that, then so be it._

_“ But this is my body now too. My soul. And I will do everything within my power to protect it. I will trust no one but ourselves. I’m sorry if that disturbs you, Rain. I admit it was wrong to be so evasive about these things but  to be honest I was afraid that, well, that this is how you would take it.”_

She felt the darkness wrap itself around her, cold and numb. Her emotions got lost in its smoke. The turmoil in her mind became less chaotic. Her troubles and actions began to feel like some far away idea she was no longer connected to.

She hugged her knees and looked out across the pond. “I was just so scared. I never wanted to hurt anyone… I just didn’t want to die.”

_“I know Rain, I know. I can see that fear inside of you. I feel it every moment of the day. I remember how you felt when I first found you. It’s your greatest fear now, isn’t it? Being put back into that sad state that I found you in. Being aware but unable to move. Being lost in that dreamless sleep, just like I was before we found each other. In the end you realized you did not want death, you simply wanted to run away. And now death is just one more thing for you to run from.”_

Rain sighed. She was right. She was ashamed to admit it but she was right. “How the hell are we going to get out of here, Chara? I’m stuck in a long dark tunnel and the end seems so far away.”

_“Just stay Determined. Let me help you face your fears. As always, I will guide you.”_

“I don’t want to hurt anyone else.”

 _“Sooner or later you are going to have to embrace the side of you, you are running from. I won’t always be able to save you unless you do.”_ She warned.

“That’s not something I want to do.”

_“In time everyone has to face the things they do not want to do. Now come on, time to get moving again.”_

She brushed back her hair and dusted off her clothes. She avoided looking at the boots. Chara had let her abandon San’s coat back in the slush now that it was no longer cold but she insisted on the boots. It made Rain sick. They scared her.

They pushed through the reeds, nose upturned and walking on the tips of their toes to try and see over the tall plants.

Rain stopped. For a moment she thought she had heard something. Something that broke through the monotony of roaring water and disembodied whispers.

“Do you hear something?” She whispered.

_“Like what?”_

“Metal.”

There it was again. That heavy ringing sound. _Thunk, thunk, thunk_. Like the beat of a war drum.

A hulking metal figure stepped out from the shadow of a large rock formation on the other side of the pond; its foreboding helm accented with a single thick plume of red. It walked over to the water’s edge and looked out over the pond from under the glowing veil of a willow tree.

Chara tensed like a cat that had been cornered by a pack of dogs. Her swirling black mass felt like a storm cloud trying to contain its own lightning. _“Don’t make any sudden moves. **Do not speak. Do not breathe.** ”_

Rain had the common sense not to speak out loud _. “What is that?”_

Chara recognized the armor at once. _“That, my dear Rain, is the Captain of the Royal Guard._ That _is Undyne.”_

The weight of understanding fell upon her shoulders all at once and she froze in place with fear. She did not move, she did not speak, she did not breathe.

The creature was massive! A true monster that would have towered over her had they stood shoulder to shoulder.

From deep within the shadow of the monster’s helm a single eye gleamed in the light, like a wisp ensnared by shadow. All at once the creature moved, lightning fast despite wearing such heavy armor. Undyne yanked a moss covered bolder from the ground and held it high above her head before throwing it into the pond with a roar like iron clad thunder. She fell to her knees, still screaming as her head hung low.

Chara drew Rain's attention off to the side. _“We should go. Careful. Crawl if you must.”_

A prick of curiosity caused Rain to wonder why this hulking beast seemed so upset but self-preservation kept her from wondering aloud.

So like molasses, Rain lowered herself back into a crouching position and began to crawl through the mud; always keeping one eye on the water’s edge where Undyne was.

Her foot slipped. It kicked a clump of reeds. They rustled back and forth.

_“ **Don’t. Move.** ” _

Undyne was back on her feet in a flash. That one point of light inside her grinning helm seemed to wink at them.

Rain pressed herself into the mud and watched things unfold out of the corner of her eye. Her heart was pounding so fast she was certain the Captain could hear it.

Undyne stalked forward, one hand held above her head. In that raised hand the light around her converged into a more solid shape. A long blue spear.

Undyne walked right into the water, allowing it to go all the way up to her waist before she stopped again to listen. She seemed to peer at the reeds for a restless eternity. But when no other sound came, She eventually lost interest. Her hand fell to her side and the spear dissolved before it could hit the water.  She turned back, kicking another stone out of her way as she slogged back up onto land.

For a moment Undyne just stood there on the shoreline and held her head in her hands. Then, just as suddenly as she had appeared, she took her leave.

Rain and Chara remained frozen in place for several minutes after that. The soft ambience of Waterfall suddenly seeming odd and sad; the warrior’s unknown grief hanging heavy in the air even after having left.

Eventually Chara spoke up. _“I think it would be wise if we start moving again.”_

For once they were in complete agreement.

***

She was not sure but she thought Chara was resting again. Well, that was not true. Not if she really thought about it.  Chara’s attention just seemed to be on other things at the moment. She was not gone and she was not sleeping, yet her shadow remained distant. Rain had been given full control of her body again. It was her job to sneak along at her own pace now.

She stuck close to the reeds and took the long way around whenever her cover grew thin. It was a shame that her situation was too grim for her to stop and appreciate the beauty around her. Had her situation been better she would have loved to sit under a glowing tree and skip rocks across a pond.

Instead she kept her belly to the mud and sloshed through streams and hopped across loose stones with a shadow of dread constantly looming over her.

They encountered a curious place in their wanderings. The foliage was well maintained and accented with several polished marble plaques guarded by old statues shaded with moss.

Rain managed to read some of what they stood in memory of but Chara did not allow her to ever pause in her step long enough to read more than a sentence or two when she encountered them. She got the gist of it though. These were memorials to the monsters lost in a war against humans. The plaques were were flecks of history and prophecy eaten away by time.

“So there really was a war between humans and monsters?”

She felt one of Chara’s shadowy eyes crack open a bit. _“So they say. The human side of things has been lost to myth so the monsters got to spin things however they wanted to down here. The humans wanted to absorb powerful monster souls to become stronger and vice a versa.”_

“Humans can absorb souls too?”

_“Of course. But only very rare monsters have a soul strong enough for a human to fully absorb. Killing off the weaker ones can still grant you some small level of power though.”_

Rain scowled. She didn’t know if she believed all of that. As someone who happened to be an expert at being human, she believed her special human abilities to be depressingly mundane. The only reason she stood any chance down here at all was because, as Chara had eventually explained it, monsters were made of dust and magic instead of something more solid and durable. They could deal massive damage but their bodies couldn’t endure much.

“If humans can absorb souls then how come you never see people doing that up on the surface?”

Something like a scoff or a snort echoed inside her head. _“Because it’s just never worked that way. It would be like trying to force two negatively charged magnets together or something. They don’t want to be together.”_

“Oh.” Her cheeks reddened a bit in embarrassment under Chara’s condescending tone. It made her more reluctant to ask the next question. “What about that symbol carved in the stone? I think I have seen it before. Didn’t T-Toriel have one?”

_“Oh that old thing? Who knows what it was supposed to be. Everyone seems to think it’s a prophecy now. Something about how someone will come from the surface and free everyone. A savior of some kind.  Personally I think they are taking the myth way too literally. Besides, I was always partial to the interpretations that it was the angel of death.  You know; some artist’s poetic belief that in death all things will be equal and free or something.”_

“Oh.” Rain said again, feeling a little uneasy for some reason.

 _“Now be quiet. You’re talking out loud again.”_ Chara’s eyes closed and she withdrew to the far reaches of Rain’s awareness once more. _“Honestly, how many times am going to have to keep reminding you about that?”_

Rain bit her lip and continued on. It wasn’t that she kept forgetting to think her words to her, she just didn’t like it. As long as she spoke out loud like she was addressing another individual it was easier for her to visualize Chara as an entity separate from her own. Addressing her like she was just another segment of her own thought processes felt dangerous. She didn’t want to accept responsibility for that sinister shadow that was growing ever thicker inside her head.

Rain spotted a decent clump of tall grass over by a rock formation with a small spring trickling out from the cracked stone. The water pooled into a small natural basin before running off farther down the cavern’s floor where it could join the deep murmur of a nearby waterfall.

She wiped the mud from her face and made herself a little bed against the stone. She was so thirsty. It was pure torment to have water all around her but never being able to drink any of it. The last thing she needed was to get herself sick while she was on the run.

She felt the dryness in her gums and on her tongue, stretching all the way down into her throat where it felt so dry it hurt.

The little spring that sprang from the stone seemed clean enough to be safe. It came from deep inside the rock after all.

She sat down with a sigh and massaged her sore muscles. A nearby echo flower startled her when it copied her sigh but it soon fell quiet again.

She took long sips from the cool water. It tasted clean enough and it felt good to finally sooth her parched throat.

It had to be near the end of the “day” by now. She had to have been crawling around down here for hours but she knew Chara would want them to press on into the supposed “night” when less roaming monsters would stumble across them. Rain would need some rest before they could do that. Just an hour or so to sit and catch her breath would be enough.

She wiped the sweat from her brow and pulled a water sausage off of a nearby plant. She propped herself up against the mossy stone and nibbled at it. It was still kind of green and gross.

She looked down at Papyrus’s boots. She still shied away from the sight of them. It was like looking him in the eye again.

She set her water sausage aside. She had lost her appetite.

She waited alone in the quiet for a while longer, prodding and testing Chara’s awareness. She was dwelling within a cloud of her own thoughts again and not paying much attention to what was going on in the outside world.

Ever so slowly Rain brought her legs up. Her hands inched closer to the boots, now so stained with mud and dust that their original color had been dulled.

She pulled off one boot. No response.

She slipped off the other. Still Chara did not notice.

She brushed the cracked dirt off of them as best she could and used the spring to wash away some of the filth until the majority of their red-orange color had returned. With a somber reverence she set the cleaned boots down next to the basin where the echo flower was.

She touched the steel buckles and smiled a little when she recalled Sans telling her how proud Papyrus had been of his garb but the smile quickly vanished into guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Papyrus. I really am. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now. I messed up. I will try to do better... but I’m not sure that’s an option anymore.”

Behind her something stirred in the grass.

She spun around, Chara waking up and causing her to clutch her spear. 

“Yo, cool spear! “ An enthusiastic voice greeted. A small yellow creature emerged from the grass. He had a little row of dull spikes running down his back and was wearing a striped black and yellow shirt. He looked young.

…Also for some reason he did not appear to have arms.

Rain got up and without realizing it, slipped the weapon behind her back and out of view.

“Uh, hello.”

“Where did you get it?” He gasped, a sudden thought dawning on him. “Yo, Undyne didn’t give that to you to train with or something, did she? Cause I would be sooo jealous if she did! I can never get her to notice me.” He bounced in place, excitement running from the top of his nose to the tip of his tail. “Oh, wow! How did you do it? How did you get her to notice you?”

“Uh, no. That’s not where I got it from.” Rain muttered, trying to piece together something to tell the child. “I just found it lying around. Off in that direction.” She pointed off in the first direction that came to mind. “I think I saw another one over there if you want it. If you hurry you may find it before someone else comes along.”

He smiled, his big goofy front teeth peeking out from behind his lips. “Oh, wow, really? Thanks, miss!” He turned on his heels, tail quivering with excitement. He took two steps away from them then stopped. He slowly turned back to her with his head bowed and faked a laugh. “Eh, actually… I really don’t think a spear would be my thing, you know? Not very good at holding them.” He scuffed the ground with a toe.

Rain was looking around impatiently for a way to get rid of him. “Well maybe you should go get it anyway. Something to keep you motivated.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Uh, so, run along then. Go on.” She tried to wave him away.

When he realized she was trying to get rid of him his tail drooped a bit. “Oh. Ok. Ah jeez, sorry lady. I’m being annoying aren’t I? I guess I should just-” He noticed the half eaten, not-quite-ripe water sausage next to her. He tilted his head. “Hay, why are you eating that old thing? There is a shop that sells stuff just over there.” He bobbed his head off in the direction of a distant hole in the cavern’s wall that probably made for a nice cubbyhole.

“Don’t have the money for it, kid.”

 _“Rain, chase him off.”_ Chara groaned. Her presence was coiling up against itself like a snake waiting for the right moment to strike.

“If I scare him he may tell someone he saw us.” She hissed under her breath.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Well the guy who owns the shop is really nice. If you’re hungry I bet he would give you something for free.”

“I don’t think he would.” She started dusting herself off.

“Yo, are you from the city or something? My mom says that city monsters are not as friendly as the rest of us. Oh, sorry, that probably sounds rude. What I mean to say is, ol man Gerson is really nice and you should give him a chance to prove it. He used to be a hero and fight bad guys, just like Undyne! Oh! Is that why you are afraid talk to him? Because he’s a hero like Undyne?” He tilted his head like a curious bird. “Are you shy?” He beamed at this self-imposed revelation. “Yo, don’t worry, I got your back! Stay right here. I will go talk to him for you and get you something to eat. A-and then maybe if you’re not busy you could tell me what it’s like in the big city?”

Rain forced a kind smile. “Sure kid. If you get me something nice to eat I will tell you all about the city.”

He bounced in place. “Cool! Alright! Yeah! Ok, I will be right back!” He practically tripped over himself in excitement and had to pull his face out of the mud. He assured them he was ok as he got back up and scampered off at full speed.

_“Well that was exasperating. Come on, drink up. We need get out of here before the little pest comes back.”_

“He’s just a kid, Chara. He doesn’t know any better. If he did he would have ran.”

_“He was a waste of time.”_

“Well he’s gone now so calm down.” She snapped. “I felt the way you were looking at him.” She stooped to take one last quick swig of water and splashed a little on her face to get rid of the itchy flakes of dry mud.

She frowned at her reflection, noticing it for the first time. There was far less red in her hair now. It was thick with gray and white. She wasn’t that dirty, was she? She tried to shake her hair out. Some dirt fell free but still it did not help the color much. It still looked like she had ash stuck in her hair.

Or dust.

_“What are you waiting for? Let’s go!”_

She pressed her lips into a fine line and bit back a sharp remark as she got up to leave.  Her feet became locked in place. _“Nice try. **Take the boots too.** ”_

She ground her teeth and turned back for the boots.

Behind her she heard the reeds rustle again.

_“Ugh, is he back already?”_

Rain turned around.

A long white muzzle parted the reeds. A black hood shielded the intruder’s hungry eyes. Its lips pulled black to reveal its teeth in a snarl.

Rain stepped back in surprise. The moment she moved the monster launched itself from the reeds with a vicious snarl; closing the distance between them in a single leap; hood falling back so that its long ears trailed behind it. It brought a battle-axe to bear mid leap and Rain just barely managed to deflect it with her fire iron.

A howl split the air and a second hooded white shape shot from the reeds off to her side, swinging low.

“Uh, hello again!” She stammered.  She reached for a nearby stick and threw it. “Remember this? G-go fetch!”

For a brief moment both dog’s attention flickered to the stick and Rain tried to slip past them but it did not enthrall them like it had in Snowdin. One of the dogs knocked her over with the blunt side of their weapon.

From somewhere up ahead a pair of answering howls came in. She could hear the clang of armor now. All four of the guard dogs from Snowdin were closing in on her position.

“Chara! Where do we go?” She cried, rolling out of the way of another brutal axe swing. She scrambled to her feet and ran for the water, batting reeds out of the way; the occasional water sausages smacking her in the face.

“Chara? Chara!”  

There was a thunderous symphony of rattling to her right. It was all the warning she got and it saved her life. She looked up just in time to see the towering figure of the largest white dog looking down at her; its little snout bearing a snarl.

She bobbed to her side just as the spear shot out of the weeds, ripping her shirt and leaving a cut across her back.

Up ahead and to her left the fourth dog waited, sword drawn.

“Nice doggies. D-don’t you remember me?” She stammered, holding her hands out and stumbling back as they approached.  “I smell like a weird puppy, remember? Put down your weapons and I will pet you.”

The lesser dog lifted its sword and swung, cutting down swaths of foliage as he went.

“Oh yes, we remember.” Dogaressa howled behind her. “You killed our friends!”

_“Chara, Chara where are you? I can still feel you. What the hell are you doing?”_

At long last Chara spoke, her voice calm and sly. _“Yes, I’m still here. But I thought you said you did not like the way I did things. So I have decided to let you do things your way this time.”_

“Help me!” She dodged another jab from a spear but backed into the lesser dog’s range as a result. She cried out in pain when the sword struck against her thigh. She fell forward into the water.

_“No, no, it’s ok. I want to try things your way now. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To show me how to take the higher road?  To show mercy? I can protect you from them, or you can protect them from me. You can’t have both. Choose one and make your peace.”_

The dogs were crashing through the water in hot pursuit. She made a weak attempt to deflect another blow with her fire iron while clutching at her new cut with her free hand. “Chara, please!” She cried, breath coming in uneven croaking gasps. Her heart was beating so hard she was getting dizzy. She could see red wisps of light coming from her chest.  Her panic was causing her soul to become more prominent.

The guard dogs were baying now.

“Catch her!”

“Call for Undyne!”

“Murderer!”

Someone crashed into her. She felt their hot breath against her ear.  Snarling, baying, howling, bodies thrashed in the water; paws and snarling mouths reaching out to ensnare her.

She felt several sets of teeth sink into her. She screamed, batting one of them away with several desperate blows from her weapon. “I will give you anything you want! I just don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!”

They remaining three dogs were dragging her under, trails of blood mixing with water between their teeth. She coughed and gagged against the murky taste of pond water. She continued to plead with anyone who would listen between her choking gasps.

This was it. She was going to be sent back into the darkness. The painful, absolute, smothering darkness. She would lose the ability to move again. She would be met by an eternity of isolation where she would be left alone to think about her inability to do _anything_.

At long last Chara believed her point had been made. _“Give me control.”_

“It’s yours!”

_“Full control. I can’t save you unless I have full control.”_

She felt herself weakening. They were tearing her apart. She couldn’t breathe.

She closed her eyes and gave up. 

Chara step forward.

The fear vanished. The pain became a dull throb.

Chara found this whole thing amusing. How cute. How… _funny_.

Her grip tightened on the spear. Her mouth split into a grin. She lashed out; water spraying everywhere.

Rain was left disoriented and confused. She could feel Chara smiling. She could feel the adrenaline coursing through her. She saw Chara up on the water’s surface, fighting the dogs, causing them to yip and back away from her wild swings.

Yet Rain could still feel herself sinking deeper into the black water at the same time. Her body was numb, distant… cold. Sensations came to her in an odd diluted way. She felt like a string was tied to something inside her chest and it was that string alone that connected her to what was now Chara and her old body.

The lesser dog yelped. All at once its armor was falling into the water along with handfuls of cloudy dust.

They were climbing back up onto the shore now. An uphill battle. They were outnumbered yet still progress was made.  Chara bent over backwards to dodge the greater dog’s spear, then she reached out and caught the shaft. The two hooded dogs lunged at her but the greater dog pulled his spear back for another attack and had carried Chara off with it.

She was _smiling_ at them.

She let go of his spear and spun around, brandishing her own weapon. She drove it into a chink in the dog’s armor and kicked Dogaressa out of the way when she came to try and save her friend.  With a pitiful whimper the greater dog’s armor crumbled to the ground in a dusty haze.

She spun around, dogging one attack and taking the brunt of another. “It’s been so long! I’m rusty!” She mused.

The fight backtracked to where it had all started. Reeds were trampled underfoot, flowers cut from their stems, petals and water sausages knocked from their place in the frenzy until there was a haphazard open space for them to fight in.

The two remaining guard dogs fought valiantly, managing to score several deep blows to Rain and Chara’s body.

“Rain, heal me.”

Rain opened her mouth to ask how but nothing came out. She had lost the ability to speak. She had to think the words instead but by the time she did, their wounds were already starting to close up due to her desire to make it so.

“See? Good girl.” Chara purred, “But you-“she spun around to face one of her attackers. She accepted a backhanded blow to the shoulder in order to grab Dogamy’s battle-axe. “You are being a _bad dog_.” She yanked his weapon forward and he came with it, snapping at her as he came forward.

“Dogamy watch out!” His mate barked.

It was too late. Chara hit him in the side. The pain startled him into letting go of his weapon and she turned it on him, cutting deep into his side with a single blow. He was dust before he hit the ground.

“No!” Dogaressa howled, lips foaming with rage. “You will pay! I will make you pay! Dogamy!” She swung hard. Too hard. It lowered her stance. She had overreached.

Chara took her down with her mate’s own axe. The look of rage on the guard’s face faded into disbelief, then nothingness. Her wound bled a strange white ichor for a fleeting second, each escaping drop turning to dust and scattering on the breeze before her body crumpled into a heap and lost its shape.

Rain stared on in shock. It felt like she was looking over her own shoulder. She wasn’t sure what she felt. She knew this was probably a bad thing that was happening but she felt like this was all just a dream. None of this was really happening. Not to her.

“There. See, Rain? That was not so hard, was it?” Chara hefted the axe in her hand but grimaced when it began to fall apart. “Oh. It’s one of _those_ things.  Bleh. I hate it when the weapon dies with the carrier. Oh well.” She picked up one of the empty cloaks and shook the dust out of it and tried it on.

Rain opened her mouth in protest but again nothing came out. _“Chara, no. come on, we don’t need that. Let’s just go. Please. Let me have control again.”_

“Mmm. But I like it. And it will hide our face.” She pulled the hood up for emphasis. “See?”

_“Chara, let me have control of my body.”_

Something rustled in the reeds again.

Something thumped against the ground.

Chara was ready in a flash, body lowered into a fighting stance and spear held at the ready.

…But nobody came.

They stalked towards the sound. Chara pushed the plants aside with the spear.

A small set of muddy footprints marked the area. There was a white handkerchief bundle lying on the ground.

Chara picked it up and examined it. Two red apples with yellow offshoots shaped like crab claws had been bundled up in the kerchief. The edges were damp with little bite marks.

Something up ahead bolted, causing the plants to shake back and forth. A little yellow shape scampered away.

For a moment Rain felt Chara considering something.

Rain reached out to her own body, grabbing the arm their weapon was in. It was a disorienting sensation. It felt like she was passing right through herself but as she worked for it she could feel her arm again. She could feel it lowering.

Chara let her do it. Chasing the monster kid was not worth the effort now. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. I can’t face Undyne until I have healed from this.” She reached for Papyrus’s boots and shook them off.

Rain tried to regain control of her body but she felt Chara push her away. “No. it’s not your turn. If Undyne finds you, you will die. I will take care of our body until we meet her.”

_“Please, let’s just leave the boots.”_

“No. I like them.”

She struggled with herself. She tried to force her way back into control but in the end it was Chara that got her way.

Rain looked away. Her eyes settled upon the piles of dust around her. She sank to her imagined knees and held her head in her hands. For a brief moment Rain regained a little bit of control, panic and regret washing over her in jarring waves. “I’m sorry Papyrus.” She whimpered.

Chara shook her head, a little surprised that Rain had managed to say something out loud.

They departed, Chara walking with a newfound confidence while Rain found her awareness taking a back seat, towed along whether she liked it or not.

Behind them the soft voice of a single damaged echo flower whispered to their backs.

“I’m sorry Papyrus….I’m sorry… I’m….so…rry…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You didn't really think that the dogs were safe just because she spared them in Snowdin Forest... did you?
> 
> I think I am going to switch my posting times to Sunday and Wednesday from now on. So expect the next chapter to be up a day later that usual. 
> 
> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	9. Shut up/ No you shut up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~shut up~~ / **no you shut up**  
>  Behind you.  
> *AWOLNATION- Run plays in the distance*  
> While not 100% acurate cause I reaally wanted to draw the boots- i drew you guys a pretty picture of [Sans and Undyne realizing Paps was missing. :D](http://undertale-rainfall.tumblr.com/post/146849102421/sylviadragon-wanted-to-do-a-little-illustration/)

The world grew more and more hazy over time.  Chara was not giving her much power over what they did. Rain continued to look at things as if in a dream. Everything was discolored and she felt like she was trying to look at things taking place at the other end of a long, dark tunnel. The only time she managed to regain some semblance of control was when Chara slept.

They had hunkered down under the arc of a a small stone bridge. Not too far ahead a series of wooden bridges and scaffolding stretched out across a huge canyon. The water beneath had just enough glowing algae in it to illuminate the piles of trash and debris that had built up against the shoreline and coves down below.

Rain slipped back into her body. Chara had been muttering in her sleep, causing some of the nearby echo flowers to emulate her. There were quite a few in the immediate area. Their blue petals swayed in the gentle breeze along with the tall grass as they whispered soft nothings to each other across the distance.

Rain rubbed at her heavy eyes and sighed.  She knew she was in trouble for more reasons than one.

She knew this was bad but the lingering effects of being shoved into the back seat of her mind was taking a while to wear off, making her feel dull and sluggish.

She closed her eyes. That felt good. They were so heavy and strained that they hurt. Closing them felt so nice. Maybe Chara had the right idea. Maybe she should just sleep.

She rested her back against the curve of the bridge’s underbelly. It felt nice to have her body back but she wasn’t sure if she was in any condition to use it.

 At least her wounds were already healed. Since monster food was magical the benefits of eating it were instant. The more accustomed to this world She became the easier it was to use that instant energy to help her heal. Chara’s growing strength had something to do with it too.

Most of their wounds were crusty old scabs or puckered scars by now; still tender but fading fast.

Rain was falling asleep now too. She pulled the hood of their stolen cloak down over her eyes. Her body felt heavy. What was the point of having retaken control anyway? She would just have to hand the reigns back over to Chara sooner or later. Otherwise Undyne would kill them.

Rain felt a stab of anger at the thought of the Captain. Killing her would bring the other fallen humans to justice, right?

Voices began to drift into her dreams. They muttered pointless things. Stupid little snippets of conversation that did not matter and were soon carried off by the soft sigh of the wind.

The sighing grew louder. Closer.

They stirred in their sleep.  The wind sounded like a voice if they thought about it; constantly hushing them.

“Shhh.”

“Shhh.”

“Shhhh..”

“Shut up Rain.” Chara muttered, causing them to roll over and pull their hood down even lower.

The wind continued to get closer. Or was it a snake? A snake sliding through the grass. Closer and closer. Louder and louder.

“Shhhhh.”

“Shhh.”

“Shhh”

“Rain, I said shut up.” Chara grumbled again.

In a brief moment of shared control Rain managed to mutter, “It’s not me.”

“Shhh”

“Shh.”

“...Behind you.”

Their eyes snapped open, both stumbling over each other for control. For several seconds neither one of them understood who was in control but Rain came out on top in the end. They sprang to their feet, gripping their fire iron and whirling around.

They both came to the same conclusion as their eyes locked on to a nearby echo flower.

“Behind you.” It repeated, its voice vaguely familiar and trill, sounding amused. A few feet away another flower said the same thing.

A little ways off, other flowers where repeating their mumbled conversations to each other now, carrying their words off into the darkness.

“Shut up Rain.”

“Rain, I said shut up.”

“Shut up Rain.”

“Shhhh.”

“Shhhh.”

“Behind you.”

“Shhh.”

“Ssshhut up Rain.”

“Shhh.”

Their conversation collided with the hushing sound and consumed it in a messy game of telephone as the message drifted through the field.

 _“Oh no.”_ For once Rain had the foresight to think the words instead of opening her mouth.

There was a blue flash of light and a blinding spike of pain. A spear had shot out of the darkness and pinned their hand to the side of the bridge. Rain howled in agony and the nearby flowers echoed her suffering.

Their first instinct was to pull away but that only hurt them more. Gritting her teeth, Rain gripped the spear in her good hand. Chara chanted orders and encouragement as she struggled to pull it out.

Another spear shot out of the reeds. Chara forced her way to the front of Rain’s mind and pulled them aside just in time.

“Very clever!” Chara called, trying to stall for time while they continued to work together to free themselves. A thick trail of blood was oozing down the stone. “Using the Echo flowers to pinpoint us. I knew you had to be dangerous to be a Captain but I forgot that they made sure you had brains, too.”

A voice chuckled. “Forgot? You make it sound like we already know each other. And there’s no way I would have let something like _you_ live long enough to forget I was dangerous!”

The Echo flowers were creating a field of verbal static now; bits and pieces of their words intermingling.

Rain screamed when they pried the spear loose. It was a messy removal. The wall bore a bloody hand print with a crack down its center.

“But I guess it doesn’t matter. I will gladly remind you just how dangerous I really am!”  Two more spears shot out of the reeds, much closer than before. How she had managed to creep up on them in armor was a miracle.

Rain and Chara flung themselves to the ground.  The spears sank deep into the stone above them and peppered them with rubble.

Chara pushed them to their feet with their good hand. “Run.” She ordered, picking up their weapon.

“Coward! Come back here!” Undyne bellowed, bursting forth from her hiding place as they scrambled up a slope and back on to the main road.

“Faster! Faster! Run faster!” Neither one of them was sure who was speaking anymore. All they knew was they had to run. 

With ever-mounting dread they both realized that their only option would be the series of maze-like bridges and platforms crisscrossing the ravine up ahead. Many of the pathways were too high up to have enough adequate lighting to see where and _if_ they connected to another path later on so there was a very real chance of getting stuck in a dead end.

“Do you remember which way to go?” Rain demanded.

“No. Keep running. It will come to me.”

The bridge swayed with their weight and rattled against the rhythm of their footsteps.  Behind them Undyne had leapt up the slope they had come from with a crash. With a furious battle cry she sent several more spears after them.

“Seven!” She bellowed.

The first two came up short and harpooned the planks just behind them, sending a spray of splinters through the air. The next two landed just in front of them and they had to squeeze past their cumbersome poles.

Undyne gave chase. The whole bridge swayed under the force of her pursuit.  “Seven human souls. With the power of seven human souls, our king will become a god!” 

The bridge ended on a stone platform that acted as a way point between the path they had taken and a much narrower one waiting off to the side. Its smooth surface was slick with moisture. They gasped when they slipped against the sudden change of footing and they landed on their hip with a painful thump that reverberated all the way down their legs. They covered their head and rolled as spears came crashing down around them half a second later, their blue glow giving off just enough light to warn them of their approach.

“With that power, our king will be able to shatter the barrier and finally retake the surface back from humanity!”

They pushed themselves back up to their feet and skidded onto the next bridge. It was short but rickety. It swayed dangerously and the ropes creaked. They only made it a few yards out onto the new bridge before they had to lunge for the next solid platform when the sound of spears whistling through the air warned them of the impending consequence of staying put.

 With a snap the ropes gave way. They barely managed to skid to the supposed safety on another smooth platform of rock.

“Then,” Undyne chuckled, “Then we can finally repay all the humans like _you,_ for all the suffering they have inflicted upon us.”

They pushed themselves back up to their feet, leaving a thick trail of blood behind them.

Undyne Snarled at them across the gap. “Six!” Another spear ripped across the darkness and caught their cloak.

The lost their balance and stumbled forward.  Rain let out a shrill, “Oh no!” As they lost their balance and stumbled forward in the middle of a sharp turn. They slipped on their own blood and found themselves sliding off the ledge. They clawed at the slick stone with bloody hands but it was no use.

“That’s how many we have collected thus far.”

Chara had realized what was happening just a split second before Rain and instead of wasting her time clawing at the ledge, she was figuring out a way to fix things. They were held in place by their snagged cloak for little more than a second before it tore under their weight. Yet the delay had been all Chara needed. She pushed their feet up against the rock face and looked down. There was another bridge just a few yards below.

When the cloak ripped she pushed off and propelled them towards the next bridge. They rolled, taking the majority of the impact in their shoulder.

Above them Undyne’s teeth flashed in a fit frustration. She jumped off of her bridge in pursuit.

Rain and Chara took off running again.

Undyne was too far off to land on the same bridge as them. They saw a brief flash of red hair as she fell past them and landed with a loud crash several yards down below. When looking over the guardrail they could just see Undyne looking up at them from the platform bellow.

“Understand, human?” She barked, summoning another attack.

They saw the lights approaching from the slits between the wooden planks. They leaned to one side and a series of spears shot up through the floor; their jagged tips narrowly missing them. They pressed up against the railing and flailed wildly, nearly careening over the edge before Rain managed to grab the handrail with her good hand and steady themselves.

They continued to run, splinters erupting from the floor half a step behind them.

“Isn’t any of this looking familiar yet?” Rain gulped.

“Not yet.” Chara panted, veering to the left at a crossroads and ducking into a short elbow-bend tunnel.

“After everything you have done, this is your only chance at redemption. _Death_ is your only redemption!” A single spear embedded itself in the mouth of the tunnel.

When they came out the other side Chara looked around, eyes wild as she searched for a path that would lead them away from the Captain.

“Any time now Chara!”

“Shut up, I’m thinking!”

“Look out!”  Rain hit the floor, another set of spears narrowly missing them. She groaned. Her hand was throbbing.

“Wait, I think I remember something. This way.” Swerving to the side and pressing their back against the slick wall, Chara darted down a set of stone stairs and up onto another bridge. This one was a little wider and more stable.

The wood was splintering in rhythm with their footfall now; bright flashes of light cropping up just a few feet behind them at every turn. Undyne continued to call to them. “So if you have any shred of honor in that black soul of yours, you will give up on this pointless endeavor of escape.”

The area in front of them broke into splinters and they fell through the newly opened gap. They landed on another short bridge that connected two rickety platforms. They looked up just in time to see Undyne barreling towards them, just a few yards away and closing in fast; her battle cry drowning out the sound of the roaring water down below.

Chara forced them back up, shrouding their pain in a numbing shadow as they limped away. It was a pitiful and painful attempt. Even in all that armor, Undyne gained on them like all this had been nothing more than a jaunt out to the mailbox for her.

“Rain, give me full control.”

“I don’t want-”

“ **Do it**!”

It felt like a hand had yanked her back her by the hair and shoved her underwater. The world became discolored. She felt like she was falling, then drifting.

Chara knocked away Undyne’s next barrage with her own weapon but still ended up taking a few nasty hits. “Piss off, you stupid fish!”

“So that’s how it is.” Undyne cackled. “Good! After what you did, I will enjoy ripping your soul from your body the hard way!”

Chara was not sticking around to see if Undyne would make good on that threat. She got a running start and flung herself from one platform to another. “Heal me.” She grunted, grinding her teeth against the ever constant pain from their growing list of injuries and the jarring impact of one fall after another.

Rain did as she was told. It felt like she was diving deep underwater to retrieve something and pull it to the surface. Her entire existence focused on finding their wounds and willing them to close.

Undyne descended upon them like a meteor falling to earth. She was right behind them again in a heartbeat.

“It’s this way. I know it is. I’m remembering- this way!”  Chara assured, not caring if anyone bothered to listen.

They staggered on in the dark, deflecting a stray spear now and then. Behind them Undyne continued to shout at them.

They could see an exit now.  A platform made of wide wooden planks leading up to a series of scaffolding and stair steps. After that they would be out of the ravine.

“Oh no you don’t!” Several arrows whistled through the air. Two of them pinned them down by the cloak again. While they were trying to free themselves another attack pummeled the scaffolding in front of them, causing the support beams to crumble. Chara watched the destrution unfold in front of her, cutting off their only way out. The walls were too steep and slick to climb.

Undyne stalked up to them; a spear lowered towards their heart. “Seven.” She repeated.

Chara looked at her then looked at the spears lodged in the platform in front of her. The wood was splitting.

“Seven human souls. That’s all we need.” Undyne lifted the spear high above her head. 

“Rain?”

 _“Yeah?”_  

“Hold on.”

 “-and now, that’s exactly what we have.”

Chara burst into a run, heading straight for Undyne with a furious battle cry. Undyne lashed out but at the last second her attack became defensive as she took a step back in alarm at their unexpected rush.

The attack came up short- Undyne had not been Chara’s target. 

Chara jumped up into the air as high as she could. She pulled her legs up under her and kept her arms close together so that all of her weight was in one spot. When gravity pulled her back down again she slammed into the planks with zero regard for Rain’s body.

For a brief moment Undyne and the human just looked at each other. Perhaps a little shocked and confused.

The sound of cracking wood kept time with Chara’s growing smirk.

Undyne realized what her plan was all too late. She stepped forward to try to stop them but it was already over.

The platform crumbled.

Chara fell.

Rain was in total disbelief. They were tumbling through the air, head over heels. Through a messy blindfold of her own hair Rain watched the glowing water below and the eternal crystal-speckled darkness above  spin in and out of view.

_What had she done?_

Up above them Undyne watched in disbelief as the human tumbled into the abyss bellow; cackling like a mad woman the whole way down.

 “Well would you look at that!” Chara exclaimed, not a care in the world. “It’s _Raining_! Hahahaha! Get it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did she seriously just make that pun? Yes. Yes she did.  
> Fun fact! When I first started this, Rain had a perfectly normal name and no memory issues. But throughout this whole story Chara has kind of had a mind of her own and back in the first chapter when I tried to introduce Rain by her real name, Chara pretty much hijacked things and said "Hahaha, no. I am tired of everyone getting to choose my name and erase who I used to be. **Now its my turn.** "  
> And yes, she 100% wanted to name her "Rain" so she could make bad puns about it at the worst possible moments.
> 
> May or may not randomly toss up an extra chapter this week since this one is kind of short. Not sure yet. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	10. Run!/Fight!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Run!~~ / **Fight!**
> 
> Chara runs around unchecked while Rain is out.  
> Rain takes a stand then sits back down.

_The lone shaft of sunlight warmed her skin. She stared up into its distant glory. What little light managed to make it this far down still made their eyes water. There was a numb sort of frustration nestled in her chest when she saw how far she had fallen. How was she ever going to get back up? How had she survived? Why?_

_A kind voice spoke to her and asked her name. She answered in a dismissive murmur._

_“Chara, huh? That’s a nice name. My name is Asriel.”_

_***_

Her eyes opened but it took her a while to realize she was awake. She stared unblinking up into the darkness from which they had fallen. Twisting vines framed the sides of the waterfall and reached out to bind themselves to each other in a green spider web of crisscrossing networks overhead. They hung low like a feeble curtain trying to hide the distant platform they had fallen from. They had helped to break her fall no doubt.

The smell of wet garbage harboring mold filled the air with a pungent earthy smell. All around them the water roared and lapped at piles of soggy junk. The water did not harbor such a bright glow down here. Pollution had tainted and killed off whatever magic had caused it to give off so much light in the first place.

Their body groaned with objections that she chose to ignore as Chara sat up and rubbed her head, taking a deep breath. It was then that she noticed the familiar smell that she had dismissed at first, even though it was strong enough to nearly overpower the smell of mold. She blinked in surprise. Flowers. Golden flowers. They were sitting in a bed of them. Stranger still, some of the familiar flowers had been plucked and laid at her feet, tied together by a single thin vine.

Chara picked a flower and took in its scent. It brought back a wave of old memories both bitter and sweet.  Something finally clicked for her then. The identity of her helpful stalker.

She blinked in surprise but otherwise hid her surprise well. “Thank you, Asriel.” She looked around, wondering if she would see him. Surely he was hiding out there in the dark somewhere. “Not going to come see me? Ah, well, for the best I suppose.” She got up and dusted herself off. With an annoyed grimace she realized that her clothes were gaining quite a few holes in them.

She gave her injured hand a once over. The wound still had a fresh scab on it. She concentrated a bit, drawing on their Determination and willing the wound to mend. It shrank but did not entirely close.

“I must admit, I was surprised that someone had bothered to follow me out of the Ruins. I certainly did not expect it to be you. How did you come back, anyway?”

Silence.

She rolled her shoulders. Her whole body was stiff and bruised. “I suppose I should be thanking you. It would have been rather inconvenient if I had died in that fall.” She thought she saw some movement among the trash heaps but perhaps it was simply the bobbing motion of floating plastic playing tricks on her.

She checked her pockets. She would need to consume more food before she would have enough energy to finish healing herself. She frowned. Both her pant pockets and the pockets of her stolen cloak were empty.

“I hope you remembered to pick my things up out of the water. Otherwise saving me was pretty pointless. You know that, right?” She sneered out at nothing. “Then again this would not be the first time you half-assed things, now would it?”

The toe of her boot tapped against something hidden among the flowers. “Ah.” She stooped down. There was her spear, sharpened and lovely as ever. Its tip had been slipped through the knot in the handkerchief that held the two apples.

“Here we are! Good.” She took her leave, leaving the small island and splashing down into the thigh-high water.  She waded through the floating trails of junk. There was far more trash here than she remembered.

She unraveled the handkerchief and began to snack on one of the apples. Despite the sweet taste her lips still curled into an unpleasant grimace. This place would have looked so much nicer if it was clean. Why was humanity so keen on polluting everything? Waterfall would have been so much nicer if it had not been forced to choke of the filth of humans that were too lazy to pick up after themselves..

As a matter of fact the whole world would be nicer if there were no humans around to pollute it.

Well, good things would come to those who wait. And she had been waiting for a long, long time.

***

_She was not sure if she was awake or still asleep. Moments and events drifted by in a fog- the world tinted and discolored with blue and gray. The whole world had been cast into a hazy, ever-looming fog._

_She felt her stomach empty and grumbling._

_She felt it fill with food._

_She felt her body ache._

_She felt her body heal._

_She could smell the mold in the air. Feel the spongy tension of old broken furniture bending under her weight as she scavenged the mounds for something extra to put in her pockets. Yet every touch felt like something distant and half imagined._

_Their scavenging was a disappointment. She felt some distant, detached feeling of frustration or anger that she did not understand. It was not her own. But still the thought came to her that of course there had been no better weapons to find, anything made of metal would have been too heavy to be carried downstream._

_There was however, some food to be salvaged. Prepackaged artificial stuff. Stuff with a vacuum seal and an expiration date that was meaningless to her._

_She moved on._

_Rain was content to simply watch over the shoulder of the-one-that-was-not-quite-her. She didn’t know how to do much else._

_She watched her body wade through the waters and stub her toes a few times._

_She watched herself encounter strange things she could not explain; like a haunted dummy that screamed so loud that its soul fused with its artificial body._

_She watched herself laugh and pull the dummy apart._

_She carried on._

_The dream grew darker. It became a fevered, disjointed haze. She recalled only bits and pieces of it. Like creeping through the tall grass or diving into the water and hiding in an air pocket under the docks when a looming shadow clad in iron searched for her above._

_Her dream was filled with the faces of monsters. Sometimes they hunted her, sometimes she hunted them._

_Things became more and more disorienting. An uncomfortable knot formed in her stomach. She pressed against the walls of her dream in an attempt to break free but the walls merely constricted against her in an attempt to smother her efforts. She sank deeper and deeper into the darkness._

_She felt like she was holding her breath and trying to swim up to the surface from the pitch black belly of the ocean._

_They were resting now. Both of them. They had found a narrow bridge to rest by. From their hiding place by the roadside they could watch for anyone who tried to cross it._

_That part of her that was shrouded in a sinister darkness reasoned that this was a good plan. Already they had caught someone trying to sneak across. The monster’s humming had given her away._

_Rain screamed in frustration but no sound came out. She struggled against the smothering discolored world but only found herself being pressed deeper and deeper into its darkness._

_In the end she fell quiet and waited.  
_

_The other her,_ _the other soul_ , _began to fall asleep. And as they did, a curious thing happened._

_Rain’s presence drifted back into control. She could feel something now. She could feel herself waking up._

_***_

She opened her eyes and took in a deep, gasping breath. She had forgotten what it was like to breathe. She sat up and looked around. The light was dim but there was blessed color in the world again. Her mind raced and fumbled. Where was she? Why was she here? What had happened?

She remembered running from Undyne. She remembered falling and the world going dark. The black nothingness of a dreamless sleep had swallowed her whole: cold and terrifying.

But then what? How had she gotten _here_?

She recalled her dreams. Had they been more than that? Had she been watching Chara all this time? She tried to recall the details of what had happened but it was all a fading blur now. This too, was terrifying.

She looked at her hands. They had been healed. She must have been out for a long time then. She couldn’t even hear the roar of the waterfall anymore.

She was still alive. At least there was that. This thought should have brought her relief but she only felt fear. She struggled to remember her dreams but the harder she tried the more she forgot.

“What’s going on?” She whispered, holding her head in her hands. “What have I done?”

She realized she could hear footsteps. Careful, quiet little scratching sounds echoing through the dimly lit cavern.

She tensed up and pressed herself low to the ground. Through the veil of reeds she watched the bridge. A small black and yellow shape was slinking across the gap, his back hunched against the darkness, eyes wide and scared.

“Oh no. What are you doing here?” She breathed. “Get out of here, kid. It’s not safe.” She tried to lay back down in the moss, hoping that if she relaxed and acted like she was going back to sleep her emotions would not be enough to wake Chara and the little monster kid would be able to walk on by none the wiser.

Why? Why was that kid all the way out here? If her dreams were true, if Chara had been doing unspeakable things while she had been unconscious, then wouldn’t someone have raised the alarm? Wouldn’t the kid have known not to come this way?

She smiled. It was a frayed, pushed to the edge kind of smile. A breathy laugh escaped her and she covered her mouth to stop it. She felt a sense of relief wash over her. If her dreams _had_ been real then surely no one would be letting their child roam free in this area! That was proof that everything was fine! Right? All those horrible things she had seen, all those flashing images, all those screams- they couldn't have been real! They were just dreams. Fevered, pointless dreams!

 … Please...please, let them be dreams.

“Shyren?” A little voice called out. “Shyren? Aaron? Anyone?”

Rain closed her eyes and prayed that Chara would continue to sleep.

“I came to save you.” He continued to whisper. “Undyne thinks this path may be too dangerous now. We have to take the boat.”

Rain’s heart sank; a new possibility dawning on her. What if the kid was here because Chara had not left anyone _alive_ to raise the alarm?

Her inner turmoil did not go unnoticed. She felt Chara waking up. _“Oh. You’re finally back. Good.”_

“No. No, no, no, no!” She whispered. She squeezed her eyes shut as tried to push the rising shadow back down.

The sound of footsteps stopped. “H-hello? Yo, Shyren? Is that you?”

 _“Oh, now this is amusing. Is it that annoying kid again?”_  

Rain tried to push Chara away but trying to contain her was like trying to smother an explosion.  Their body began to twitch and thrash as they fought for control.

“C-Chara please.” She rasped, “I don’t want to do this anymore. You’re scaring me.”

“Yo, A-Aaron? Is that you? This is not funny man. C-come out. W-we gotta go. Undyne said the human will probably take this route. We need to get to the boat.”

 _“A boat?_ ” Chara coiled in upon herself in preparation for a strike. Rain could feel her hands moving against her will- grasping for the spear. _“Now this is interesting. I suppose this means we won’t be meeting any more friends from here. But I wonder… if they were all on a boat with nowhere to run...”_

Their hand found the spear. Rain latched on to any semblance of control she could manage.  The weeds wiped back and forth with the efforts of their struggle.

The little monster took a few steps back and their voice cracked. “Hello?”

Chara forced them to their feet and raised her spear.

Rain screamed, her voice going raw with desperation. “Kid, run!”

For a brief moment their eyes locked. They shared the look of two people who were finally realizing that they had both done something very, very stupid and now something bad was about to happen because of it. She saw a horror just as deep as her own reflected in his eyes as it dawned on them both she had probably found his friends long ago.

The little monster stumbled backwards and turned to run.

Chara aimed to throw her spear.

Rain lashed out with everything she could muster. She poured all of her effort into stopping her. Once again she was having that strange out of body experience. She was standing next to Chara, who was still taking aim. Rain threw herself at her spear arm. She grasped at her wrist with desperate hands and tried to hold her back. It worked. A little.

The spear nicked the kid’s tail. He yelped in surprise and tripped. In a mix of horror and frustration Rain watched him tumbled head over heels and slip over the side of the bridge. He managed to catch himself somehow.  His little clawed feet scraped against one of the supporting beams, the small spikes in his tail wedged into the rough wood.

“Someone, anyone, help! U-Undyne! Undyne!” He cried.

“No!” Rain rasped. She was at a crossroads. Did she dare allow herself to get close enough to help?

Chara was laughing again. She all but skipped over to her spear and picked it up. “Very nice, Rain! I mean, it will be hard to absorb any power from him if he’s just a smear at the bottom of a ditch, but still, good job. This will be much more _amusing to_ watch.”

She continued to struggle to regain some semblance of control over her body but it was like trying to swim upstream in a river of molasses. “Let... him… go. Let…. him…go.”

Chara cleared her throat and pushed her away. “Oh, I will. Don’t worry.”  She leaned over the railing a bit and smiled. “I won’t lay a finger on him.”

A familiar sound reached them. Armored footfalls crashing through the darkness. Chara spun around. Rain felt a small ray of hope fall upon her.  _Yes. Oh please, please let it be her. Hurry. Please, hurry!_

A tall figure clad in armor charged into view, red plume trailing behind her like a heroic banner.

Chara’s smile widened. “Hello Undyne. Come to join us?”

A spear collected in Undyne’s hand. Chara shook her head. “Now hold on. Isn’t there something else you should be doing first?” Chara leaned down to look at the kid again. “Down there? See him?”

Despite her face being hidden by a helm, both Rain and Chara could pinpoint the exact moment that panic hit the Captain like a physical blow.  She looked over the edge and then all at once it became quite clear that her only priority would be saving the child.

 “Undyne, help! I can’t get up!”

 “Hold on, Kid. I won’t let anything happen to you.” She lowered her spear into a defensive pose and took a few cautious steps forward. “Get the hell away from him.” She ordered.

Rain prodded at Chara with a new Idea. _“Chara, Chara lets go. Let’s run. We can escape while she saves him. We won’t have to fight anyone. Let’s go.”_

Chara took a few steps back, each movement overly dainty to the point of mockery. “Go on.” She spread her arms wide and pointed at the kid with her own weapon. “Do it. Save him. He’s a monster after all- and we all know the Underground only likes to kill children if they’re _**human**_.”

“H-help! I’m slipping!” A series of frenzied scraping sounds caused Undyne to break eye contact with them and turn her attention to the child.

Chara danced forward a few steps.

Undyne jerked back into a fully defensive stance, spear held at the ready. “I said get back, you filthy psychopath!”

“Tick, tock, Undyne. Didn’t you hear the boy? He’s slipping.”

_“What is wrong with you? Let them go! “_

_“Oh but I have a much better plan now. Just wait and see.”_

“Undyne, help!” The child wailed.

“Come on now, Undyne. Don’t be rude. Play along.  Let’s see who is faster. Can you get to him before I get to you? Or will you just watch him fall? I know I will!”

He screamed. There was another brief moment of desperate scraping and then a little yellow shape fell away, looking up at them with jaded shock in his eyes.

What happened next took up only a few heartbeats to unfold but it felt like it took place in slow motion.

Undyne ran to the place the monster kid had been and tossed her spear at Chara. It was a messy throw that landed at their feet. Just close enough to make Chara stop short and hesitate for a brief second.

Undyne took that split second for all it was worth. For one horrible instant Rain and Chara’s gaze locked with Undyne’s one shadowed eye. In that moment Rain could see all the hate, all the rage, all the solemn disgust that this monster felt towards her. Then it was gone. Brushed off like a pesky fly. Undyne had turned her attention away from them.

Chara rushed forward, her own weapon in hand. Her eyes were trained on a joint in Undyne’s armor but Undyne was too fast for them. Too aware of what was coming.  Chara watched in mild frustration as Undyne dove off the bridge, the tip of Chara’s spear scratching a fine line in her armor as she slipped past them, diving into the abyss below, all of her concentration focused on the falling child.

A second spear collected in her hand and she let it fly. In a flash of light it snagged the falling child by the scruff of his shirt and pinned him to the rocky wall.

Undyne hit the wall soon after, grunting and sliding downward in a hail of rocks.  She dismissed her spear and scooped up his small body in her arms and held him close as she slid down the Cliffside. She tried to summon another spear and lodge it in the wall to hold them steady but she slipped, pushed away by the rockslide.

She managed to right herself in the air just in time to minimize the damage taken when she hit the uncaring ground down below. A large puff of dirt rose up around the impact area. When the dust cleared Undyne was on her knees.

Chara leaned over the edge to observe, annoyed to have missed her shot but curious to see what would happen next.

Rain shuddered, feeling the darkness of her sins crawling under her skin. She wanted Undyne to pay. She wanted anyone who had hurt any of the human children to pay. But this was just sick. That boy had done nothing wrong.

In this brief lull when Chara was focused on other things, Rain tried to throw away the fire iron. If she could throw it down into the pit then they would have to run. There would be no other choice. They wouldn’t have a weapon any more.

Chara’s eyes widened in surprise as the spear slipped from her hand. Rain tried to throw it with a frustrated shriek but Chara caught on just in time.

 “Oh no you don’t.” Chara pushed her back into the darkness again. “Nice try though. But this is no longer your choice.”

Down below, a small shape climbed out of Undyne’s arms. His voice echoed up the cliffs walls in shaky trills. “Undyne, y-you saved me? Yo, I thought I was a goner! Heh.”

Undyne fell forward onto all fours and her helmet rolled off.

“Wait? Are you ok?” He inched a little closer so he could peer under her plume of hair. “It looks like you fell pretty hard.”

“Yeah Kid. I’m fine. Not even a scratch.” She forced herself back into an upright sitting position.

“Oh man, Undyne, I’m so sorry! This is all my fault, isn’t it? I should have left like you asked me to! Ohhh! I was just worried about my friends and…and that… human...” His voice grew softer as they both looked up at Chara. “I was so scared. She was just waiting to watch me fall.” He breathed.

Undyne pulled herself back up onto her feet. She was favoring one leg over the other. “Get out of here, Kid. I will go deal with that _thing_.”

“Wha? Now? But you look hurt! You should rest.” He laughed nervously and snagged her glove in his teeth to try and lead her away.

Undyne looked down at him and gave him a fond pat on the head. “It’s ok. I’m a warrior, remember?” She looked up at Chara with murder in her eyes. “I don’t need rest. I don’t _want_ it. What I want… is to make them _pay_.”

“Ah.” Chara sighed, backing away from the edge.  “They are both going to be ok. Oh well. Some other time then.” She turned away and pulled her hood up over her eyes. “Come along, Rain. I think I know where we will meet her next. Yes, it’s all coming back to me now. The place where the Captain caught my last two children. Do you think she killed your friend there too?” Chara smirked when she felt Rain react. “Ah, yes, there it is. I can feel it. You are still angry with them, aren’t you? Good. You should be. Because death down here is not quick and painless for people like us. It is slow and unpleasant. Don’t you want to make them pay for doing that to your friend?”

_“I just want to go home.”_

“And you will Rain, you will. I promise.”

 _“Please, let me have my body back. Let’s find some other way to do this. I don’t want to hurt any more people.”_ She pleaded, trying to convince herself that Chara was wrong despite the anger tightening in her chest. _  
_

“That’s not entirely true now, is it? You _do_ want to hurt them. I can feel it. You are so, so _angry_. You want them to pay. You want to feel that there is a sense of justice in the world. But you are too weak to do the deed yourself. But don’t worry, dear Rain, I am here for you. I will help you get all the things you have been too afraid to ask for. All you have to do now is **close your eyes…and stay Determined**.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	11. the heroine/the villain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~the heroine~~ / **the villain**  
>  Undyne strikes down the human, avenging her friends and freeing the Underground...  
> Undyne strikes down the human, avenging her friends and freeing the Underground...  
> Undyne strikes down the human...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp i'm bored and have nothing better to do. Also the last two chapters felt kind of short so have an extra one this week.  
> (if i'm not just talking to myself that is.)

The wind began to blow. It howled down the mountainside and made all the weeds bow before its call. Far atop the highest ledge a figure stood with her back to the shadows, her red hair dancing like a flame in the wind. The distant glow of the Hotland painted her face with the colors of a sunset she had never seen.

 From where she stood Hotland made it look like the whole world was on fire, like the whole world was ending.

Today it felt like it really could be.

She saw her approaching from the distance. She did not go after her this time. They both seemed to know that it was inevitable that they would have to cross paths here. So she simply watched and waited. It wouldn’t have been wise to chase after the human anyway. That fall had hurt her. She hid it well but the human seemed to understand that she had just been putting on a brave face for the kid.

They watched each other as the distance between them grew smaller and smaller until at last the human stopped just under her perch. They looked up at her and waited.

Undyne’s lips twitched in some form of a knowing smile. So then they had both reached the same conclusion. They would finish things here.

“I admit, I’m surprised. I did not think you would face me willingly. You spent so much time running; hiding like a coward from the impact of your choices, that I assumed you would try to crawl right past me again with your belly in the mud.”

The human pulled away the cowl of her hood, allowing her red and white hair to billow in the wind. “I don’t need to hide anymore.”

Undyne took a deep breath and looked back towards Hotland. The familiar shape of a lab could be spotted among the blackened silhouettes. So far away and yet close enough to make her stomach tie itself in knots. If this creature was allowed continue, her path would bring her right past that lab.

She couldn’t let that happen. She would have to kill her here. Then her soul would set everyone free.

Her grip tightened on her spear. Well, maybe not _everyone_ … just the ones that were _left_.

Her resolve hardened.  “Seven.” She made herself stand up straight. It hurt for more reasons than one. “Seven souls and King Asgore will become a God. Six. That is how many we have.”

“Yes, I know.”

Undyne looked down into the human’s eyes. Did they find this amusing? Did they think that ripping apart her world one friend at a time was _fun_? She ground her teeth, rage welling up inside of her. “You know, it’s customary for me to tell you the story of my people. To help you understand why all this is necessary. But I don’t think you would care about that, would you?”

“Not really. No.”

“Well then, let me tell you a different story. It will help you understand the reason behind your slow death when I tear you apart.  Three days ago, Papyrus was late to his lessons.”

For a brief moment the scumbag’s smirk faltered.

“I know he gets on some peoples nerves.  He’s weird, he’s naive, he’s self-absorbed- but he _never_ misses a lesson. And when you call him, it doesn’t matter what time of day it is- he _always_ answered in the first two rings.” Her voice fell and her hands trembled. She lowered her gaze so that the shadows shaded her brow. “But when I called him three days ago, he never picked up. The phone rang and rang and rang but no one answered." She took a deep breath. “What did you do to him?” Her voice cracked and her throat was rubbed raw by rage. “What did you _do_ to him! To _all_ of them! To Papyrus, who I always knew was too goofy to hurt anyone but I still trained every day. To his brother, Sans, who has vanished without a word. What did you do to my Canine Unit? They were a family! An entire family! Gone, just like that! What did you do to my friends? My neighbors who used to talk to me while I was out on patrol?”

She tossed a spear down into the dirt below. It made a dull thud as it slid into the moist earth where it waited, thrumming with a faint hint of power.

“Go ahead.” She spat. “Prepare however you want. Arm yourself. Unlike you I don’t make it a habit of picking unfair fights with defenseless people. But know this, human: when you do step forward, make your peace. I can’t bring back the people you took from me but I can stop you from taking any more of my friends away.  I will kill you. And I promise you, it will not. Be. Quick!”

For a moment it looked like the human was whispering to itself. Then they reached into the folds of their stolen cloak and revealed a sharpened fire iron.

With a sickening pang Undyne realized the cloak had belonged to one of her guards.

The human tested its weight, swinging it back and forth a few times. Then she picked up the spear Undyne had tossed at her feet and tested that one as well. She slipped her fire iron back into the fold of her cloak and nodded. “Ok. We are ready.”

Undyne closed her eyes and pictured all of her friends. All the people she was fighting for. She laughed. She had waited far too long for this day. The day all monsters would be free. But now she felt no joy, only rage. Her eye snapped open and she launched herself from her perch.”En garde!”

She pulled her own spear out of the air and swiped it across the air in a sharp motion. A rain of pulsing green needles pelted the human.

The human raised an arm in defense as the needles sank into her skin, turning into green streaks of light. She looked down in surprise as the lights burrowed through her flesh and vanished once they reached her chest.

Undyne stalked the perimeter, dragging her spear through the dirt until the human was boxed in by the shallow line.

A red light began to flicker to life in front of the human’s chest, pulled into the open by green tendrils of emerging light that converged on her soul. Like the sound of a drumbeat, the heart pulsed once and turned green.

“Now I’ve got you.  As long as you’re green, you can’t run off again. And unless you learn to face danger head on, you won’t last a second against _me_.” She raised her hand to the false sky and called forth several more spears. They darted this way and that through the air, crisscrossing and arcing through the darkness around her. Undyne gave the command and it began to rain blue hellfire.

The first one was a direct hit. It sank deep into the human’s back and she screamed, spinning around far too late. A second spear came whistling through the air and she just barely managed to hop out of its way.

When the next spear came she knew to listen for the whistling air and twisted around in time to knock it to the ground. Twice more she used her gifted spear to block Undyne’s attacks.

Undyne stalked the perimeter she had drawn in the dirt; watching, learning. She wanted to rush in and do everything herself but knew that would be foolish. 

The spear that had been lodged in the human’s back eventually flickered and vanished. A dark spot began to spread across her shirt. She managed to avoid the next few arrows of light despite her wounds.

Undyne nodded, impressed. “Not bad. But how about this?”  Several spears left their school of lights up above them and dropped down until they were hovering just a few feet parallel the ground.

The human looked around, wary eyes darting between all the hungry points of light. The spears chose their angle and began to shoot past the line in the dirt.

The human wobbled out of the way of the first few shots, roaring as she knocked two to the ground and managed to doge a third while maintaining her balance. But  as her movement triggered the next wave of bombardment, her attempts to fling herself out of the way unknowingly brought herself towards that shallow line drawn in the dirt.

Her soul lit up like a green fireball, flames curling up against an invisible wall the moment she tried to step foot over the mark.  She fell backwards and received two more solid blows from Undyne' magic, one colliding with her side and another lancing through her leg. She screamed and staggered.

“I told you, you can’t run.” Undyne spat. “Get up.” She was cradling her bad leg, gasping in pain as crimson liquid ran down her shin. “I said get up! I am doing you a service but I won’t wait forever.”

She used the borrowed spear to pull herself back up to her feet. “What’s a matter Undyne? Too afraid to step into the ring with me?” She taunted through grit teeth.

“Are you really so eager to be turned into dog meat?” She waved her spear again and another glowing assault fell from the ceiling.

The human managed to knock several of them out of the way but once again another one struck her in the back. She staggered forward, eyes wide. She spat out a mouthful of blood. She was wheezing pretty hard. “Come in here and **fight me**!” She snarled, pink foam building in the corners of her mouth. She could not stand up straight.

Undyne’s grip on her weapon tightened, making her leather gloves creak. “With pleasure. I think you have had a long enough warm-up anyway.” Undyne crossed the line at last. She could feel the warmth of her own spear in her hand, its energy pulsing like a heartbeat.

 _For Papyrus._ She thought.

She hoped he would forgive her for having failed him like this. She felt ashamed to have let him indulge himself with a sentry station that had put him in this… this _thing’s_ way.

 “You may have the first move, Human.”

“That’s a stupid choice to make.” She lunged forward, movements staggered and messy. She aimed her weapon towards Undyne’s abdomen.

Undyne took half a step to the right and smacked the human’s weapon aside then arced the pole over her attacker’s head and yanked back. The back edge of her spear caught her in the arm like a fishhook and yanked her forward.

The human spat at her, trying to bring her own spear around in time to knock her away. The edge scraped against Undyne’s armor and a second jab nicked her injured leg.

Undyne pushed her away. “For years we have dreamed of a happy ending.” She lifted her free hand and more spears dropped down to hover just above the ground. The human hopped and staggered through the array while Undyne sidestepped them with ease, exchanging a few test blows while the human continued to stagger and slow as they continued to bleed. “And now the sunlight is finally within our reach-”

The human charged forward. Undyne stood her ground and caught the spear by the pole and used the human’s momentum against her, steering her around and up against the invisible wall once more. She bounced off of it, stumbling back and lashing out with uneven swings. How was she even standing at this point?

Undyne snatched her attacker's spear again; sustaining deep cuts to her hand as the sharpened tip ate through the warm leather of her glove.

Undyne lifted her own spear and roared. She pulled the human toward her and drove the spear tip into her heart.

The humans eyes widened in surprised. Her mouth worked to form words that would not manifest.

Undyne’s voice came out in a single husky breath. “-and I won’t _ever_ let you snatch that dream away from us.”

The human looked at her with shock. Terror. Suffering.  She clawed at the spear and fell to her knees. Her green tainted soul fluttered, emitting several strings of green and red color before losing its shape. The green vanished like someone had popped a balloon full of fog. All that was left was a single red ember that faded into nothingness.

The human’s eyes glazed over. Their borrowed energy spear unraveled like dust being blown away in the wind and her body fell face down.

Undyne let out a shaky breath and propped herself up on her spear.

 She waited to feel something grand in light of her victory. Joy. Relief. Excitement- but instead she just felt tiered. Like she had been holding her breath for too long and had not slept in days.

She told herself she should be happy. She would finally get to see that sunrise she had always dreamed of. 

She squeezed her eye shut to try and fight back the tears.

Only now, she would have to see it alone.

***

Rain felt like she was trying to swim up a waterfall. She grew weaker and weaker. The world grew darker and darker. All of the throbbing pain that she would have given anything to stop just seconds ago was now going numb along with all her other feelings.

She was falling back into the darkness. That eternal prison of nothingness where her thoughts would be doomed to wander forever until they fell into madness.

A voice drifted over her. A disappointed sigh. _“Well, that was rather pathetic. You could have at least stayed out of my way.”_

Rain tried to hold on to consciousness but it was slipping through her fingers.  Her body hit the ground but she did not really feel or see it happen. She felt empty inside.

Chara seemed annoyed but understanding. _“You keep dragging your feet and telling yourself you are making a willing sacrifice  to protect these creatures but in the end you are still afraid, aren’t you? Afraid of_ this _.”_ Chara’s whole presence seemed to gesture at the darkness that was swallowing them.

_“…Yes.”_

_“You don’t want to die yet, do you? You don’t want to go back into to the dark. You don’t want to think about what they will do with your soul once they have it. You heard what Undyne said. With seven souls, monsters will break free from the Underground and turn upon humanity. And it will all be your fault. Doesn’t that scare you at all? Doesn’t that make you **angry**?”_

_“Yes.”_ She admitted in a pitiful whimper.

The voice grew closer. It whispered in her ear. She could almost feel the warmth of a breath it did not have. _“Then I think it’s time I show you a little trick. Strange things happen when human Determination and monster magic meet.”_  

Rain felt herself drifting upwards. It was like her body was weightless and someone was picking her up and setting her back on her feet, even though she was no longer sure exactly where her feet were.

_“Ah yes, I can feel it. More than anything, you do not want to die. You don’t want Asgore to take your soul. You are more afraid of death than you are of me. You care more about you living than them dying. Good. Hold onto that. Stay Determined.”_

Her fingers twitched.

 She had fingers! That one simple idea brought her unparalleled joy and relief. She even laughed a little and smiled. She _felt_ herself smile! She could almost hear herself laugh. " _Chara, what’s happening? What’s going on?”_

There was a light up ahead, warm and red. She was drifting towards it. Gaining speed one sluggish second at a time.

_“We are going back to before we died.”_

_“That’s impossible.”_

_“No it’s not. Magic and Determination are strange things. Just focus on the light. We will get there. No, **Don’t look back**. The darkness is behind you, waiting. **Don’t let it catch you**.”_

_“I-I don’t understand.”_

Chara sighed. _“Of course you don’t, do you? Adults always struggle so hard with anything that changes their world. Unlike children, who just accept it. Look, you have played video games, right? Just think of this all as one big game. And right now, we are reaching out to our SAVE file…”_

Rain reached out to touch the light. It filled her with warmth. It breathed life back into her.

There was a bright flash and then she was yanked out of the darkness and thrown back out into a world of substance once more.

Suddenly she could feel their body again. She felt like she had just jumped out of a moving car. She was confused and disoriented. One second she had been lying on the ground in front of Undyne and the next she was someplace else.

She gasped for breath and leaned against part of the cavern wall for support. She reached up to touch the wound in her chest but it wasn't there.

 She looked up in surprise. Undyne’s silhouette watched them from a rocky perch off in the distance.

Rain took a step back. Her amazement and relief began to boil down into something far more sickening. “Chara, have we always been able to do this?”

Chara pushed her aside and took over with surprising ease. She stretched and flexed the limbs of her restored form. “Oh, no. No, of course not.” She assured with a satisfied purr. “Thanks to you I have been growing stronger and remembering more of my past lives. It wasn’t until recently that I remembered how to do _this_.”

 Rain drifted along in her stolen body, stomach twisting. She wasn’t sure she believed her but she was relived to still be alive.

“Ah, you must be upset with me, even though I just saved you. Again.” Chara droned in an annoyed monotone. “You’re wondering whether or not you could have used this to save Papyrus, aren’t you? Well, maybe if you had placed more trust in me back then, I would have been strong enough to remember sooner. Strong enough to save him.”

Rain felt like her guts had been scooped out. She wasn’t sure what to think anymore. She was so hopelessly confused by all this. She was grateful beyond belief to be alive but she felt emotionally drained. _“How many times can we be brought back to life?”_

“Well if you keep getting in my way like you did last time, we will find out, wont we?” Chara threaten in sickly sweet annoyance.

She wasn’t sure if Chara was lying to her or not. That fog was settling in over her mind again. Was that fog Chara? Or her own cowardly nature letting her run from the truth?

“ _Chara, we have to go back! Surely there has to be some way to go back even farther into the past? Before we ever had to hurt anyone? If we can go back far enough maybe we can avoid falling down here in the first place! Then the king won’t be able to take our soul. We could find a way to seal up the opening so no one else can ever come down here again.”_

“Sorry Rain, but I only have one save point and this is as far back as it goes. I know you’re scared of me but honestly I am the lesser of two evils right now, don’t you think? Undyne won’t show us any mercy so just let me handle her like we planned. You can have your body back when I’m done. So I’d appreciate it if you at least _tried_ not to get in my way, if you’re not going to help me. I can’t save you from the darkness forever and neither one of us finds the sensation of being impaled pleasant.”

Chara felt Rain’s will fading away into the mist. Chara smiled a little wider.  This is why she so loved having an adult to use. They loved to make things complicated in order to justify themselves. They were willing to live in that little gray area and look the other way if it meant not having to cause trouble. “Alright then. Let’s try this again.”

It was eerie when Undyne greeted them with the same words as before.

 “I admit, I’m surprised. I did not think you would face me willingly. You spent so much time running; hiding like a coward from the impact of your choices, that I assumed you would try to crawl right past me again with your belly in the mud.”

Chara pulled down her hood and watched her. “I don’t need to hide anymore.”

Undyne stood up straight and proud, glaring down at them. “Seven.”

Chara Stared at Undyne's injured leg. She was trying to hide the fact that she was trying to avoid putting any weight on it. 

“Seven souls and King Asgore will become a God. Six. That is how many we have.”

“Yes, I know.”

Chara watched the rage flash across Undyne’s face.  “You know, it’s customary for me to tell you the story of my people. To help you understand why all this is necessary. But I don’t think you would care about that, would you?”

“Not really. No.”

“Well then, let me tell you a different story.”

Undyne began to echo her previous speech. Knowing what she was going to say word for word was an eerie feeling for Rain. Chara seemed to only find it annoying and used up this lapse of time to converse with her other half. “If you want to look away, you can. Just close your eyes and I will take care of this. You will feel less pain that way.”

Rain’s presence ebbed and flowed in and out of focus several times. She remained on the threshold, unable to decide.

 “Alright. Well then, brace yourself. I have a feeling this is going to take several tries to get down. Hope you’re tougher than you look.”

Undyne tossed a spear down into the dirt below them. It made a dull thud as it slid into the moist earth where it waited, thrumming with a faint hint of power.

“Prepare however you want. Arm yourself. Unlike you I don’t make it a habit of picking unfair fights with defenseless people. But know this, human: when you do step forward, make your peace. I can’t bring back the people you took from me but I can stop you from taking any more of my friends away.  I will kill you. And I promise you, it will not. Be. Quick!”

Chara took the spear and gave it a test swing. “I know.”

Undyne launched herself into the fray, shouting : “En garde!”

Chara darted to one side, watching Undyne’s spear fall. It flung an arc of droplets made of green light at her. Despite anticipating this, the cut was still too wide to avoid and so several points of light still seeped into her skin. She once again felt the odd sensation of those pinpoints crawling under her skin and forcing her soul to visibly manifest itself.

“Now I’ve got you.  As long as you’re green, you can’t run off again. And unless you learn to face danger head on, you won’t last a second against me!” She raised her hand to the false sky and called forth several more spears. They darted this way and that through the air, crisscrossing and arcing through the darkness all around her.

This time Chara was ready. She spun around and deflected the first blow, which had originally hit her in the back. The next spear nearly hit her but she remembered things well enough to deflect that too.  She was listening for the whistle of incoming projectiles now. She heard one coming and tried to block it but got grazed in the shoulder. She cursed under her breath.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Undyne finish drawing a line in the dirt. Chara’s lips curled back into an annoyed sneer. She had forgotten about that little trick in her eagerness to not get impaled.

“A warning would have been nice.” She spat at Rain, annoyed that she was still dragging her feet.

“Hah! What do I look like, your kindergarten teacher?” Undyne stepped forward and struck out at her with two quick jabs.

Chara took a stiff step back in surprise at the out-of-pattern attack, avoiding the first strike but gaining a long gash down her forearm from the second.

“Not bad. But how about this?”  Several spears left their school of lights up above them and fell to the ground until they were hovering just a few feet above the ground.

Chara dogged left, feigned right and jumped over two other attacks as they crisscrossed underneath her. To her mild surprise she felt the bleeding from her arm slow. Good.  Rain may be wising up to things but at the end of the day her instincts of self-preservation were stronger than her mounting fears of Chara.

Once again she was taken by surprise when Undyne struck early. Another hail of spears forced her to stand her ground, rotating in place and knocking them away as they came. But this time as soon as the round ended Undyne was upon her with another vicious set of strikes.

“What? Not going to let me have the first move? Rude.” She taunted, panting. She was losing ground now that  Undyne had entered the ring early. She was being forced farther and farther back as the Captain exchanged blows with the speed of an angry viper. A stab in the thigh, a nick in the neck, a decent hit to her side. Things began to add up.

“Somehow I get the feeling you don’t deserve much civility.” Undyne hissed.

Chara laughed. “Curious. I guess you can still remember some things after all, can’t you?” She could hear the spears falling behind her again. She felt Rain tensing up in anticipation for the blow.

Chara grunted when the first falling spear hit her in the back. She dropped to her knees and let the other two graze by overhead.

Surprise painted Undyne’s face. She waved a hand and the two shooting spears arced up into the air and winked out of existence mere inches from the warrior’s face.

Chara took her chance and lunged forward again. This time there was solid contact, the spearhead digging deep into the right shoulder joint of Undyne’s armor.

Undyne grunted in pain, faltering back a step and gritting her teeth. Chara tried to drive the spear deeper but the half-healed gash in her arm had made the handle of her own weapon slick with blood. Undyne pulled free and waved her hand again, calling forth another rain of spears. “It will take more than _that_ to defeat me!”

Another set of spears were hovering a few feet above the ground now. They darted past Undyne and forced Chara to retreat. Her successful strike had only served to anger her opponent.

 “All the pain you have inflicted on the fallen; every hope, every dream you have turned to dust... I’m going to run you through for each and every one of them!” Undyne was on the offensive again.

Chara felt her back smack up against that invisible wall again. It sent an uncomfortable sensation up her spine and pushed her away, right into Undyne’s awaiting spear.

It sank deep into her chest. In some distant corner of her mind Rain gasped in pain. They both looked down at their wound, its appearance now familiar. They felt their heart throb once as if echoing their own failed cry of pain. They pawed hopelessly at the spear, darkness eating away at the corners of their vision again.

Undyne was looking down at them, teeth flashing in a savage grin while her eye remained empty.

 _“No… No! No! No!”_ Rain’s consciousness was pressing itself up against the darkness, trying to hold it back. _“Not again! Not again! I don’t want to go back!”_

With her last ounce of life, Chara looked up at Undyne as realization dawned on her. Blood leaked out from between her teeth as she laughed. “I know… how… to beat you.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It would seem that Chara has finally revealed her ability to RELOAD.  
> ~~~~  
> Another encounter that was initially rather finicky as I tried to figure out how turning a soul green could keep someone from running while still allowing them to move and doge
> 
> ~~~  
> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	12. the fallen/the victor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~the fallen~~ / **the victor**
> 
> Waterfall grows deathly silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can’t sleep. Can only suffer.  
> *throws chapter on table* My offering to the gods.

The progress was not pleasant. The pain did not numb over time but Chara was no stranger to suffering. It was simply par for the course. They felt the pain of death chase them from the physical world over and over again. Yet each time they lost, they had lasted a little bit longer in battle than the time before. They had done a little more damage than the last time they had tried.

With each reincarnation Chara would whisper to Rain and prod at her for help. And each time she did, Rain would bend to her will a little more. Every time they died Chara made sure to wait just a little bit longer to pull them back to their save point; pretending to struggle to pull them back from the brink of death.

Adults were sad and foolish things. They thought they had been around long enough to understand how the world worked. Throw them down here with all this magic and they would struggle to rationalize everything.

 Rain didn’t know how things worked so Chara could feed her all the lies and half-truths she needed. As long as Rain believed there was a danger to run from and a gray area to hide in, Chara would be able to control her.

So she made her believe that their ability to pull themselves back from death was limited by something other than their own will to survive. She made her believe that they were running out of time.

Rain tried to regain control and run once or twice, but Undyne would not allow it. The ironclad Captain did Chara the favor of being Rain’s inquisitor, relentlessly beating her down.  She forced Rain, who was soft and weak, to experience the pains of death over and over again as punishment for her reluctance to fight.

Her attempts to free herself from Chara’s grasp and seek some form of retribution were meant only with torture. Her reluctance only resulted in being thrown back into that darkness she so feared.  There Chara would claim that this may be the last time she could bring them back.

Then she would whisper about how the monsters killed children for their souls. She would tell her about how king Asgore would wage war on the humans if they let him win.  She would remind her of how the monsters had taken her best friend away.

Poor Rain, she had loved that boy of hers _so_ much.

Five or six painful deaths and progressively slower reincarnations later, Rain’s will finally broke.

She was ready to cooperate. After all, she still forced herself believe that after Undyne was gone Chara would let her regain control of her body.

Poor little puppet.

Rain’s shaky presence finally staggered up to Chara within the swirling darkness of their shared mind. Chara could feel her like a hand on her shoulder; her face hidden. Above them Undyne was giving her speech again. To her credit she had shortened it a bit. She probably sensed that they had done all this before.

“Yes?”

_“I will do it. But only if you promise to give me back full control when it’s over. No more violence.”_

“Of course Rain, that’s quite a reasonable request. After all I only ever assumed control to protect you. And after she is out of the way, Asgore will be the only thing between us and the barrier anyway. So, are you ready to be done with this? Or do you need to take another nap in the soil?”

Her presence shuddered, unease rising up within her like cold shadows. _“I am ready.”_

“Good. All I want you to do is watch my back. Let me see what you see.”

Once again Undyne shouted “En garde!” and came flying down at them. Once again they were hit by an unavoidable spray of energy that pulled their soul to the surface and tainted it green.

They were quite familiar with the routine by now. They danced past the first few waves of attacks and welcomed Undyne onto the battlefield.

Chara deflected one blow after the other, dancing around within their little sparring box with Undyne looking on. With Rain acting as the eyes in the back of her head it was easy. Each time Undyne thought she had boxed them in Chara would back away from the invisible wall at the last second or deflect an attack that had come at her from a supposed blind spot.

“Not bad.” Undyne grunted, eventually launching herself into the ring and going toe to toe with them.

“Well you know what they say, practice makes perfect.”  Chara quipped.

For a brief moment it looked like Undyne may have caught the gist of what she was implying but she was not given long to ponder over it.  She was falling back from their melee exchange and sending down another rain of hellfire.

Chara advanced anyway, too hungry for a blow to back off despite the oncoming danger.

She took another quick step back; surprised that Chara was willing to take the risk. Undyne deflected the first jab but Chara scored a cut across Undyne’s leg with the second, driving her even farther back into a defensive stance.

With this new space opening up between them, Chara had enough room to bring her spear all the way up again and deflect the next round of magical attacks as they fell. She rolled to the side, getting nicked in the arm but otherwise avoiding the rest of the attack.

“Really Undyne, is that all you’ve got? I expected more from the Captain of the Royal Guard.” She struck out at her again. Undyne sidestepped and retaliated, red hair trailing behind her like a war banner.

“You really want me to kick it up a notch, you little shit?”

_“Don’t provoke her!”_

“Why not? People tend to get sloppy when they’re angry.”

Three jabs, one after the other, each one causing Chara to take a step back to avoid getting skewered.  Shorthanded spears with vicious barbs on their sides started to fall in from several directions, Causing Rain to tense up out of habit.

Chara knocked two of the oncoming attacks out of the air, spinning in place and deflecting a third. Undyne was giving her no quarter now. Another relentless attack caught her in the ribs, throwing them off balance. Chara managed to knock Undyne back with a desperate, wild swing before falling onto her back as another spear streaked by overhead and sent up a shower of sparks as it collided with Undyne’s armor.

“Get over here, you little brat!” Undyne spat, spittle flying from her lips as she began creating and then smashing spears into the ground one after the other.

Chara rolled back and forth in an ever decreasing area of space to try and avoid her. One hit her in the back but didn’t sink deep enough to remain logged there. “Rain, heal!” Chara snapped. She soon felt the warm itching sensation of flesh knitting itself back together.

Undyne raised her arm again to command the next wave. Chara screamed her battle cry and snaked forward; raising her spear and catching the warrior in the side during a brief moment where she had exposed herself.

Undyne grunted in shock and doubled over a little, hand shooting up to the wound in her side. She finished off her attack command in a desperate attempt at recovery.

Chara reached out to Rain, whose disembodied presence had a wider scope of awareness. She sensed Rain bracing herself for the blow and knew where the next strike would land. Without batting an eye Chara lifted her spear and blocked the shot without even turning around. Then in the same smooth motion, she sprang forward and brought the tip of her spear around to gain another cut to Undyne’s good leg.

Undyne was falling back now. She was being forced to put all her weight on one bad leg or the other. The wound to her side was draining her; she struggled to catch her breath.

“Surprised?” Chara taunted, knocking away another shot that came in from behind without even turning back to look.

“What… the hell are humans made out of?” She panted, staggering a step before righting herself and  pushing forward, back into the fray.  Each word she shouted was punctuated by another frenzied stab.

“Stop!” She cut left, Chara dodged.

“Being!” A school of knee high spears darted through the weeds while a second wave came in at shoulder height. Chara jumped over one and then ducked under the other.

“So!” She caught Chara in the shoulder, causing her to be knocked sideways into an ungraceful spin.

“Damn!” She had pushed Chara into a corner now. Their green soul throbbed in warning as they neared the line in the dirt.

 _“Heal me. This will hurt.”_ Chara warned.

“Resilient!” Undyne went in for the kill, aiming for the heart. Unbeknownst to her, Chara and Rain had seen this move several times before by now. They tucked their arm up against their chest as the spear slid through the air, cutting a gash in their arm but being knocked off course by their elbow.

Chara lashed out with her own spear, aiming over Undyne’s shoulder and snagging against a chink in her armor.  After that everything happened all at once.

Undyne corrected her strike and hit them just under the heart. The pain made the world go white and out of focus but Chara snarled and fought her way through it. She yanked her good arm back, dragging Undyne forward a step on her weakened legs while Chara herself advanced forward against the pain of the recent blow.

She gripped her lent energy spear with one hand while the other vanished into the folds of her stolen cloak. She had been waiting for the proper opportunity to use this.

She clutched the cold steel of her fire iron. It was far shorter than Undyne’s spear but now that they were face to face it did not matter. In one lightning fast move she plunged the cold iron down into Undyne’s  chest; her desire to harm driving its iron edge past her protective armor like it was paper.

Undyne staggered back over the sparring line, looking down at her chest in shock. “No…You can’t…” She laughed; a strange, wild look in her eye. “You… you were stronger than I thought!” She fell to her knees. Her body was beginning to shimmer. “So… this… this is where it ends?”  Her whole body shuddered as she coughed.

Chara spent several seconds doubled over and gasping for air before she managed to pull herself to her feet. She tried to pick up her energy spear but it disintegrated in her hand as she touched it.

Undyne began to sound panicked. “No. No! I Can’t! Everyone is counting on me to protect them! ” She gripped the fire iron lodged in her chest and pulled it free. She tossed it away with a clatter. Her entire form danced and shimmered like a watery reflection disturbed by a pebble.

Chara limped over and retrieved her trusty weapon like a wary dog scavenging for a bone.

Undyne created a new spear and threw it at them. They tumbled out of the way and fell into a defensive stance; expecting a second attack that never came. Undyne was too busy trying to hold herself together to strike at them in rapid succession.

“Heh. H-had enough yet? Because…I…won’t give up.”

Rain looked down on her with a cold sort of pity.  Was this what justice looked like? It was far less satisfying than she had hoped.

Revenge wore an ugly face. A face that looked far too much like hers.

_“…Leave her.”_

“No.” Chara purred. The green was fading from their soul now. It was beginning to glow red again, matching the stains on their shirt.

Undyne swung her arm, causing her body to shimmer again. Another rain of bullets assaulted them but they were slower now. They quivered in the air and some even fell to the ground and vanished.

“Alphys...” She gave a shaky laugh, “This- this is what I was afraid of. This why I never told you!”

 _“Chara, give me my body back.”_ Rain’s presence gripped at her like a hand on the shoulder but the hand trembled. Her grip was weak. Her efforts to keep them alive had left her feeble and drained.

Chara watched Undyne with hungry eyes. “Just close your eyes, Undyne. Sleep.”

“No. No! I won’t die!” for a moment Undyne’s body reformed a bit. “I won’t die!” It grew a little more solid.

Chara stepped over the sparring line, twirling her fire iron into a striking position as the last green wisps vanished from her soul. She struck at Undyne again.

She deflected the blow with her gauntlet but it broke her concentration and her body began to shimmer again.

_“Chara, Chara, we won! We won! Just leave her! Why are you tormenting her?”_

 “I won’t die! I-if you think I’m going to give up hope then you’re wrong! Alphys told me she would watch our battle….and if anything went wrong, she would evacuate everyone. But… but that-” She coughed.  Her entire body shuddered.

Undyne looked up with a big, mocking, toothy grin that lied about everything she was feeling. “That… won’t be necessary! Because I won’t…die..”

 Chara looked down at her, emotionless. “You are already dead.”

“I….won’t…” She fell over, a dusty shadow of her former self following  behind her like an after effect. The world seemed to fall eerily quiet save for the wind. She struggled one last time to pull herself back up but her arms slowly slid back out from under her with a rattling sigh.

 It felt like all of Waterfall sighed its last breath alongside its heroine when Undyne’s smile died on her lips and the deadly light in her single sharp eye faded away into a glassy dullness.

Her last words were lost to the wind that scattered her dust.

Chara took a long, deep breath that hurt her injured ribs, then sighed. She could feel her power increasing.  Undyne’s strength was _hers_ now.

She could feel Rain’s attempts to push her away becoming a feeble notion, like the mewling of a kitten.

“Shut up, Rain.” She stooped down and picked something up out of the pile of dust. Another trophy to remind her of her cunning victory.

She took the eyepatch and tied it to the end of her improvised spear. “Undyne was strong. But I was stronger. And now,” she cast her gaze towards the distant smoldering features of the Hotland, her new hunting grounds. “I am stronger than you, too.”

Rain’s feeble voice was a whisper now, crying out that that this was her body. That she should be the one in control.

Chara laughed at this foolishness as she set out on her new path. “Oh Rain, you idiot. **Since when were you ever the one in control**?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just to clarify, this was another instance of Rain messing up the “classic” script of a geno run while still managing to kill everything available to her. While Chara did indeed try to kill the monster kid, her attack missed and thus did not need to be blocked by Undyne. So instead of the fight transpiring on the bridge where Undyne would receive the inspiration necessary needed to transform, she instead had to bail out early to catch the falling child. By the time they met up again the “moment” had passed and the battle resumed as usual but still resulted in a geno ending for the zone: death to everyone they encountered and an attempt to kill the monster kid.  
> I did this because I really wanted to explore the neutral route dialogue and death you get in Waterfall. It all seems so poorly represented but its so good (and sad) that I had to try and do it justice.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~  
> I’m really looking forward to the next few chapters. We will be switching PoV for a bit so we can find out why the heck Mettaton decided to try and stop you in a geno run when he could have saved himself instead.  
> ~~~~~~~~~  
> Thanks to my sister [Shystone/Derptale](http://durptale.tumblr.com/) for helping me edit.  
> 


	13. Hot air and spare parts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Hot air and spare parts**  
>  We interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news over in another POV. Mettaton? Take it away.

There was a surreal fog of chaos surrounding everything now. The air felt heavy and the world felt slow, like everyone was trying to run inside a nightmare. The world hung in disbelief. One moment everything had seemed so quiet and calm... then a little whisper had come in about a human arriving.

It was just a rumor. Something that a friend of a neighbor had mentioned in passing without any real belief in what they were saying. There had been a little curiosity, a little hopeful excitement, and then the world just forgot and moved on.

Then the next thing everyone knew the news reports were coming in. Warnings, evacuation orders, death tolls.

Mettaton had been among the very first to know that Undyne had fallen. He had been there watching the screen with Alphys when it happened.

He also had to be the one to report this breaking news to the rest of the Underground, including the death toll of Waterfall. He had to do it knowing that many of those plain, faceless numbers that scrolled past him on television had once been his friends and neighbors.

He had been waiting for some news- any news at all- about his own family. But so far none of the evacuees who had made it past the human had seen any of his cousins or siblings. He kept telling himself that there was nothing to worry about. Blooky would be smart enough to go and hide somewhere. And the ones that had possessed training dummies could just blend right in and let the little abomination pass them by, right?

Mettaton checked his watch. The boat was late. The viewers would probably want another live update soon. He couldn’t stay on break forever.

“Come on Blooky. Come on.” He muttered, drumming his fingers against his side in an unintentional rendition of his newest gameshow’s theme song.

The approaching splashing sound caught his attention. The River Person was pulling out all the stops tonight. Their boat had been permanently locked into its fastest setting, causing it to sprout legs and dart across the water on a thin sheen of magic. Its feline figurehead looked all too cheery against the bleak backdrop of the refugees it carried on its back.

The River Person was at the head of the small craft, hood and cape dancing ominously in the hot wind, their figure hunched and shaded by shadow.

Mettaton inched a little closer to the docking point, straining for a better view so he could pick out the individuals among the clumped mass of monsters. The raft skidded to a halt beside him, causing him to wheel back to avoid the spray. Several dazed monsters stumbled off onto dry land, clutching at each other for support.

“Tra la, la, off you go! Hurry now.” The River Person called.

Mettaton sprang into his usual roll at once. “That’s right folks! This way, this way! The wonderful Dr. Alphys has made arrangements for everyone! Yes, yes, that’s it! This way my darlings and gentledarlings!” With a grand flourish he waved them off down the road towards the lab, his buttons lighting up in the shape of a big blinking arrow while the words “REMAIN CALM” scrolled across his screen.

“Whoa. It’s Mettaton.” A starstruck voice gasped. A little kid with spikes running down his back and a black and yellow shirt broke away from his parents a little to look at him. His little mouth was agape, revealing over-sized buck teeth.

“That’s right, it is I: the marvelous Mettaton, here to guide you to safety and update the public on the human’s movements!” He gave a gracious bow, quite an impressive balancing act for a rectangle with one wheel to work with. “Head inside the lab. You will be safe there.”

The child’s mother gave the boy a reassuring touch on the head and sent Mettaton a weak smile that reflected his own hidden feelings of buried fear. “Thank you Mettaton, for giving us hope.” She murmured. 

“It is my pleasure, darling.” He turned his attention to the crowd as a whole. “Say, on your way over did anyone encounter a ghost or a possessed dummy by any chance?” He cleared his voice with a metallic whirr, “Just ah, asking for someone who came off the last boat.”

Everyone shook their heads. “No. We came from Snowdin so maybe we missed them.” The child’s father looked down at his son. “Kid, did you see anyone like that when you were in-“” He choked a little, reliving the terror at having been separated from his son, “in Waterfall?”

“A ghost?” The boy crunched up his face a little in thought, “N-no... Hey, Mettaton? Any news about Undyne? We… we need to send someone to go check on her! Sh- she was hurt. She fell and-”

His mother nudged him along. Perhaps she had heard of the report already. “Come on Kid, we need to go. Mettaton is busy and we need to get to the lab.

The kid ducked away from his mother as he was carried off by the current of the crowd. “Hey, wait, I think I did see a dummy! But-“” His voice cracked and his eyes began to water. “But I- I think it was dead.”

Mettaton nearly lost his balance for a second. He swayed a little on his wheel before reminding himself that if it had indeed been a family member, they would have probably just left the dummy once it was destroyed. “Ah, thanks Kid. But I’m sure the ghost who was using it is fine.”

“No.” He squeaked, head bowed as he was ushered away by his mother. “They were dead. There was….dust.”

Mettaton’s body suddenly felt far too heavy and yet completely hollow.  Dust? Dead? How? Humans did not have magic attacks!

The world spun in light of this revelation. However, being the marvelous actor that he was, he did not let the refugees see any of the impact this news had on him. He was their shining beacon of hope after all. It wouldn’t do for him to go dim in their darkest hour.

As soon as the last foot had touched dry land the River Person spun their raft around and prepared to make their next trip. “Tra la la, Mettaton, what is the latest report?”  They asked as they prepped for their next launch.

He still had to pull himself back from the lingering shock in order to answer. The kid had been wrong. He had to be. Everyone was alright. They were _ghosts_! They didn’t _have_ a body for the human to harm!

“Uh, ahem, sorry. Yes, well, the evacuation of Hotland is coming along nicely. We had to deactivate a lot of the security puzzles in order to give people a way out but almost everyone should be here by now. Those who won’t make it tonight will take a less direct route tomorrow.”

They shook their hooded head. When next they spoke they did not sing. “Angel have mercy on the late ones." They murmured, casting a look back down the dark river tunnel. "I must be off. Take care of yourself Mettaton, don’t stay out too late.”

“No need to worry about me darling. No show is over until _I_ sing! I will be on air for as long as I have viewers who need the best and latest info. But you on the other hand, are running a risk here. You should be going to the lab soon with the rest of the refugees.”

The hood shook softly with quiet laughter. “A captain goes down with their ship. So I suppose we are both staying out late, tra la la.” Their voice dropped as they changed subjects. “No sign of Napstablook yet I’m afraid. I think this will be my last pass through Waterfall for the night. But I’m sure those you are looking for will be alright. Perhaps they are just being smart and hiding somewhere else.”

“Of course.” Mettaton scoffed, trying to brush off the looming shadow now hanging over his mind.

The River Monster nodded and the raft took off  once more in a spray of sparkling droplets.

“Of course he is.” He echoed again, a little less gusto in his voice this time.

***

He gave another update on the human’s location and perceived path, once again urging everyone still watching to follow instructions and find a safe place to hide. His small dedicated crew helped him man the security camera feed and kept him on air late into the night.

The refugee flow from Snowdin and Waterfall had all but stopped. There were just a few stragglers limping in now.

With the human growing ever closer and strange technical problems causing their broadcasting to become shoddy in some areas, Mettaton dismissed his ever loyal camera crew so that they could get below ground and be with their families. Their viewer count had dropped anyway once everyone had gone into hiding.

He finally made one last attempt to warn and encourage everyone to get down to the lab, then he shut the channel down. He was surprised at the impact this had on him. The world felt grim and quiet now.

He barely had time to think upon it before the back door to the lab slid open and a frazzled Alphys scuttled in with a small group of stragglers in tow.

“M-Mettaton, what are you doing! You should be gone by now!” She stammered.

“Ah, Alphys, there you are. I was starting to wonder if you had run into trouble.”

“N-no. I’m fine. I just went back to make sure no one had changed their mind.” She ran over to a panel on the wall and jabbed at its buttons in a memorized sequence. “Alright, in here. Hurry.” She ushered the five monsters that had arrived with her through a door with a bathroom label on it. But instead of being greeted by the usual bathroom fixtures, an elevator slid up to welcome them instead.

She stepped inside only long enough to instruct them on which buttons to push before backing out; apologizing profusely but not quite explaining why.

When the door slid shut and left Alphys and Mettaton alone in the room together, she didn’t quite seem to realize he was still there.

Her glasses were askew, her lab coat stained in more than its usual array of colors and her eyes were red from lack of sleep and bouts of crying. “I couldn’t g-get Muffet to leave her web. I-I told her the human would k-k-kill her but none of the spiders will leave!” She ran right past him to check on the screens. She tripped over the corner of her coat and careened into a nearby table, causing an avalanche of dirty dishes and papers covered in chicken scratch to tumble down around her. She sat among the shattered aftermath with her head in her hands, her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs.

Mettaton wheeled over and helped her to her feet. “Come on Alphys, it’s not over yet. Get up. The world needs you, darling.”

“No it doesn’t!” She cried. In a little whimper she added, “It needed Undyne.” She wiped at her nose with a dirty sleeve and accepted his hand but her gaze remained fixated on the floor. “But now… I’m all that’s left.”  Seeing Undyne’s death had destroyed her. She had hardly had the strength to stand at first. But as the dire situation had loomed ever closer something inside of her had hardened, reforged by grief into a solid purpose that kept her standing- for the most part.

“Well as they say in showbiz, the show must go on. Alphys, darling, this is your moment. It is indeed dark and grim but you are the heroine of this story now.”

She shook her head. “It’s too late, Mettaton. It’s too late. I moved as many of them as I could but the paths to the other shelters had to be closed off. I have been sending everyone who was too slow down to the True Lab.” She dabbed at her eyes and hobbled over to the array of screens. “Now everyone is going to know about all the horrible things I did. They probably already hate me down there.”

“really? i would think they would be too busy being grateful that you saved them to worry about your failed experiments.”

Alphys spun around in surprise at the sound of the new voice. Mettaton looked up as well.

“Sans?” She balked, dry washing her hands and looking as if she had seen a ghost. Sure enough there was a familiar shape lounging in the shadows with his back pressed against the wall over by the stairs. She had not heard him arrive.  “H-how? I- you went missing! I thought you were-?”

“dead?” He smirked. “nope. for some reason she decided not to kill me.” He rocked back on his heels and gained a distant look in his eye. “sure feels like she did though.” He stepped out of the shadows and looked her up and down like he was judging her. His chin was buried in the folds of an orange scarf.

Alphys suddenly became aware of what a mess she was. Next to his nonchalant calm she felt like a panicked rabbit.

There was a knock at the back door and one of the screens switched cameras so that she could see who was there. A frightened family was huddled up against the door. Alphys hurried past Sans and pulled the little group of monsters inside.

“you have been doing a good job here, al. i’m proud of you.” Sans said, wearing a fake smile of encouragement and watching her dart around him, not really bothering to move. His words sounded empty.

“H-here. Get inside. I’m about to lock it.” She sent the family into the elevator and beckoned Sans forward to do the same.

He shook his head. “nah. think i’ll pass. there are old memories down there i don’t feel inclined to disturb.”

Alphys’s already frazzled nature became utterly distraught. “S-Sans! I know how much it must hurt to lose Papyrus, I have lost people to her too, b-but i-if you stay up here the human will kill you!”

Those white spots of light inside his skull winked out, turning his sockets into black, lifeless pits as he shrugged. “nah i don’t think so. but i won’t stop her if she wants to _try_.” He tucked his hands into his coat pockets and looked over at her array of screens. “huh, well would you look at that. speak of the devil. she’s here already.”

Everyone strained to look at the screen. Sure enough the human was making her way towards the lab.

“Oh my god! S-s-she’s already he-here!” Alphys gasped, her knees going weak. She tried to send the next elevator down but it didn’t respond. Instead the light overhead flickered and went dark with a distraught whirr.

Mettaton hurried over to assist her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“T-the elevator isn’t moving! It-it does this sometimes. S-some of the buttons are really touchy.” She pulled the protective panel plating away from the wall and began to wrestle with the tangle of wires and chips underneath.

“Sans, Mettaton, please! Get in here, hurry!” She was looking over her shoulder at the screen. The human was getting closer. She was in the shadow of the lab now.

Alphys was prodding at and rearranging the guts of the elevator, pressing its naked buttons every few seconds to see if anything she had done had worked. The family she had ushered into the lift were now huddled together in the corner, their eyes wide and fearful.

“Ugh! It’s not working. D-dammit. I need more time. _I need more time_!”

Sans and Mettaton exchanged looks, Sans sharing his pinned on smile with him. “you too, huh bud?” He remarked.

There was a knock on the door. Everyone went deathly silent.

Alphys didn’t have much time to react after that. Suddenly Sans was right there by the elevator door, a hand sliding out of his pocket amidst a faint crackle of magic. The door slid shut on a shocked Alphys.  “lock the door behind you. don’t come out. don’t move until she's gone.” He instructed; voice as casual as ever.

Alphys’s muffled voice came through the thick doors. “Mettaton! Sans! No!”

There was another curious knock at the front door.

Mettaton looked at Sans. The skeleton hid half his guilty face behind the scarf while his eyes continued to evade any direct look the TV star tried to cast upon him. “You’re not sticking around, are you?” Mettaton concluded.

“sorry pal, i need to get farther ahead of her. take care of them for me, will ya?”

Alphys was prying opening the elevator doors again. “Mettaton, Sans, p-please! If you stay out there she will kill you!” She repeated, all out of words.

San’s spun around, his left eye emitting a blue spark. His hand cut across the air and snapped the door shut again, causing Alphys to squeak.

She called to them from behind the door in one last attempt to make them see reason. “Do you really think this is what they would have wanted? Napstablook? Papyrus? We are all grieving right now but you don’t need to die for their memory!”

San’s form smeared a little, like someone had tried to remove him with a bad eraser, or like his shadow was creeping up to take his place. “heh. don’t stress yourself, alphys. one way or the other, these things have a way of working themselves out. one day we will all wake up... and it will feel like all this was just a bad dream.” His fake grin widened.  The knock at the door had become a reckless scraping. The light in Sans’s eyes went out and his grin widened into something unsettling. “and if it doesn’t? well, then i’ll just have to fix this myself.” The dark foggy smudge expanded and Sans vanished, leaving Mettaton alone in the room with nothing but the afterimage of San’s grin to think about.

Mettaton turned to look at the door. A little sliver of light spilled in from the outside. She was forcing her way in.

All Asgore needed was a little more time to absorb the souls. Then, surely he would come to make things right.

All Alphys needed was a little distraction so she could fix the elevator.

Well then, wasn’t he just the perfect monster for the job? He was, after all, a magnificent entertainer.

The slit in the door was widening. A hand slid through the gap and began to feel around.

“Sorry Alphys. You have done _beautifully._ But let’s be honest; at the end of the day I just don’t like sharing my spotlight.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the MTT chapters were the most fun to write out of everything I did in this arc. :3  
> I didn't even like Mettaton until i wrote this.


	14. mind the stairs/Mind your mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~mind the stairs~~ / **Mind your mouth**
> 
> No one warns Chara about the stairs.

The greatest poisons are slow. The greatest poisons make you feel good. The greatest poisons won’t let you know they are working until you can’t live without them. And then one day you understand you can no longer live because of them.

Chara was one hell of a poison.

Rain was about as powerful and noteworthy as a shadow now. Although sometimes it did feel like that shadow gained a little weight that dragged at Chara’s heels now and then. It didn’t matter though. Chara had assumed nearly full control of their body by now. It was so nice to have a physical form of her own again. It was freeing to be able to walk and talk and think aloud the way she wanted to and not have to worry about what anyone thought about it.

Rain couldn’t do anything to stop her. Her fear and cowardly nature had been rewarded properly. If she was not brave enough to do what needed doing, if she was not strong enough to face things on her own, then she didn’t deserve this precious body.

She would still keep her promise to her of course. Unlike everyone else Chara had ever known, she planned to stay true to her word and bring Rain back up to the surface. They _would_ see the sun again and all their old problems from past lives _would_ go away.

Everything would go away. Finally. At long last. All the sickness burned away to dust and ash. All those people who had lied and abused them, all those simpering monsters who had put on a kind face and had once made Chara- a child- believe that it was her duty to save them at any cost- they would all get what they deserved. They would be known as Rain: the woman who fought monsters and won!

Everyone would get the release, the _salvation_ that they had once banished her with. In the end they would all sleep forever.

But first, she would make them pay.

Chara was making her way through Hotland now. It was an unpleasant place. She wondered if any of the monsters here could appreciate the irony of turning such a large chunk of the Underground into the human definition of the underworld. Fire and brimstone, a black featureless ceiling, a dry unending heat and the rumble of rolling magma- was this not what people thought hell was like?

Her feet crunched against warm gravel. Her hair clung to her glossy face and all of her joints were slick with sweat that stained her ragged clothes. If she had wanted to be practical she could have at least abandoned the black cloak by now but she liked the idea of collecting trophies.  Whenever Rain tried to sneak forward and reclaim any semblance of control the reaction those items caused her acted like an alarm bell. Also she simply found them... _funny_.

She looked up when a tall box shaped building cast its shadow over her. It had the words “LAB” painted on it in big red letters.

Down here they really liked to keep things simple.

She smiled and put her hands on her hips. She was kind of surprised she had made it this far. Rain had been wising up to her and had been starting to fight back near the end of their little adventure in Waterfall.  Chara had been worried that she would push her away before she had absorbed enough power to take control.

The whole way here Rain had tried to reason with her. She begged the question of why she was doing all this while she watched Chara use her body to cut down frightened monsters as they tried to run away. Her thoughts continued to echo around in their head like nagging flies even now. It seemed to be all Rain was capable of doing now, whimpering questions over and over again.

_“Why. Why? Why!...Why?”_

Chara sighed in exasperation. “Because it’s what they deserve. You will understand someday. They never really cared about you. People are only ever nice because they want something from you, my naive little Rainstorm.”

_“You…took…everything…”_

Chara checked the lab door.  It looked like it should have been motion activated but it didn’t move. She tucked her spear behind her back and gave an experimental knock. She wasn’t sure since the walls were so thick but it sounded like there may be someone making noise on the other side.

“Of course I did. Didn’t I _just_ say people only befriend each other because they want something? You don’t have any right to complain really. I only took what you were willing to give to me. I always asked first. I _asked_ you to take me with you. You agreed.” She scowled and knocked again. There could be lots of useful things in this place. Supplies, maybe better clothes, hopefully a more lethal weapon than her stupid little fire poker.

 _“You… **lied** … you lied about everything…everyone…didn't you? You have taken away…everything.” _She repeated.

“You chose to believe me. You wanted someone to help you. You wanted _revenge_.  The thought made you feel good. Don’t lie, I felt it.” Chara snapped. “And you chose to let me do the things you were too afraid to do because if you looked away you could convince yourself that you were not responsible! So I let you do just that. I let you hide and remain weak while I shouldered your burdens and grew stronger because of them! With each moment of control, I woke up just a little more. With every kill I grew a little stronger. Do you remember what that strange little flower said about LOVE and the world being kill or be killed? He was right. Down here things like LOVE or EXP and HP are all real. And every time I did something for you, those things increased. Not for you, but for _me_. Now _I’m_ the strong one.” She shook her head and clicked her tongue. “You are just like everyone else. It’s not like I was particularly devious, I literally asked for your soul, you fool.” She laughed to herself and ran a hand over the door.  She wondered if she could pry it open. “It’s not my fault that you were shortsighted. I mean, I understand what was going through your mind at that point: what use was your soul to you if you could only ever use it to continue to exist in the nothingness? It’s alright. It was valid reasoning. But now you have to pay the price for that agreement.”

Rain’s presence was fading away now. She didn’t seem to be interested in conversation now that she was being called out. Just as well. Chara was growing bored of talking to her.

She jammed her spear into the little slit in the door and used it to pry it open. It whined and creaked but it had not been locked for whatever reason, so with a little effort and elbow grease she managed to pull the door open just a crack.

She peeked inside. She could have sworn she heard a voice but she didn’t see anyone. She listened for a second longer to assure herself there would be no ambush before she forced her arm through the gap. She began to worm her way inside.

She made a show of dusting herself off and looked around at her prize of a room once she got in. Her face fell and she wrinkled her nose once she got a look at what she had unlocked. “Oh. Well this looks boring.” She had had some vague expectations of something a little more… dramatic?

The air smelled stale. More so than usual.  There was a ridiculous pile of old bowls, foam cups and takeout containers stacked like shambling skyscrapers on a nearby table and scattered across the floor. The walls were bland and pristine if not a little off-color in the corners due to age. The floor was equally bland and slightly faded. There was a huge glaring monitor surrounded by lots of smaller ones just to their left.

“Well isn’t that nice. Look Rain, we are on TV.” She spun in place, holding her hands out and allowing her cloak and sleeves to flail out behind her like a fan. She kept her eyes fixed on the screen as she spun. “Look at you! You’re famous!” She leaned in a little closer and saw a series of sticky notes stuck to several of the monitors. Some of the button had been rubbed down with wear.

“Oh. This must be what the fish was talking about.” She flipped through a few of the options. Camera feeds from Snowdin, Waterfall, Hotland and other various places flashed by. “Ugh. Well this is annoying. I bet they have evacuated a bunch of people by now.” She stuck a finger in a precariously placed yellow tea cup and to her disappointment the tea was cold. Great. Maybe she should have taken Undyne’s words a little more seriously and not wasted any time.  She was not sure exactly how strong she would need to be by the time she reached Asgore, so every monster that managed to escape was a possible complication.

At least he hadn’t absorbed the six souls yet. Maybe he wanted to wait until everyone was out of the area before he unleashed that kind of power? Maybe he was afraid of the possibilities and was dragging his feet. Whatever the reason, she knew he had not absorbed them. If he had she would have been able to tell. At least she hoped she would be able too.

She began to rummage through the scattered chicken scratch notes scattered across the room. The Underground had a finite amount of space. The barrier boxed them in in all directions. At the end of the day every hallway, nook and cranny was just another dead end. So that meant that somewhere out there, there was a dark little nook crammed full of weak, cowering monsters with their backs against the wall. So much XP and LOVE could be gained in one sitting if she could only find them. She wanted that power. She _needed_ that power. She needed to prove to herself that she could do it.

She cursed and knocked a few bowls over into the already existing mess on the floor. She wasn’t seeing anything. Did she dare waste time watching the camera feeds for some kind of hint? It was just now dawning on her that silly ol’ father may actually have the power to ruin all her hard work if she didn’t reach him fast enough.

Beyond the literal wall of old food and utensils, something moved just out of the corner of her eye. Without even thinking she threw one of the ceramic bowls at it.  It arced across the room and shattered against the corner of a vending machine, sending a spray of old noodles bits and room temperature broth in every direction. Her other hand darted down to take hold of her trusty spear.

For a brief second she felt really stupid, because at first glance it looked like she really had just panicked and hit a vending machine.

But then it moved again. A hand came up to flick a goopy noddle away from its screen. “Ah, I see you finally managed to notice me- now, now, there is no need for that, you ugly little creature.” The talking box held up its hands but did not try to back away when Chara moved as if to throw something else at him. A pixelated smiley face assembled itself on its screen and mocked her with a chortle. “You have already made quite a name for yourself out there, no need to drive the point home even more. You’re dangerous and out for dust- we get it.”

He wiped off a few more bits of food and put a hand where his hips would be if he had been anything other than a gaudy metal rectangle. His other hand made a gesture like that of one holding his chin it thought- resting right below his screen because –again- he was literally just a blinking rectangle with a stupid amount of buttons and dials on him. He seemed oblivious to Chara’s cocked brow and annoyed expression and continued to carry on with his speech in an overly loud and dramatic voice. “Such infamy! I am impressed.” He applauded. She was not sure if robots were capable of sarcasm but if he wasn’t, he was still unintentionally dripping with it. He gestured to the screen behind her, which still portrayed her likeness. “I don’t think anyone has ever managed to upstage my prime time viewer numbers until you came along. Now everyone only has eyes for the live feeds.”

 “What the hell are you supposed to be?” She snorted, talking over the top of his speech. She found his voice grating. It was like she had stepped onto the stage of a campy game show. “Some sort of automatic defense system for the lab?”

He chortled. “You could say that. Those abilities are certainly within my programming.”

Chara began to stalk the room in a wide arc, always keeping her spear hand on the same side as the robot. A strange little scuffling sound caught her attention. Her eyes darted towards a set of moving stairs. Was there someone up there?

The robot seemed to notice where she was looking. “Ah, if you are looking for Dr. Alphys, she’s not here. While you were busy doing your, ah, _thing_ , she was running around evacuating people and leading them to safety. Now they are in a place where you will _never_ get to them.”

Alright. Someone _had_ programmed this thing to be a cocky little shit.

She was trying to inch a little closer to him, trying to find a blind spot to strike at. But he continued to turn in place on his one stupid wheel so that no matter where she went, that mocking digital face continued to watch her.

“Deciding not to fight you…” he put his hands on his sides and sighed, “My, my, she really is the only _smart_ one around here, isn’t she?”

Her hidden weapon slipped out of her sleeve a little. He noticed it at once and inched back a little. “Oh? How sassy! You are just itching to get your hands on me, aren’t you?” That digital face winked at her.

“Oh for god’s sake just shut up!” Pushed over the edge by his constant teasing lines she hurled the spear at him. It made an audible _thunk_ as it bounced off his side, clattering to the ground a few feet away. Now he had an ugly dent in his smug rectangular side.

She didn’t seem to notice the muffled gasp that came from the door next to the stairs. She was too focused on Mettaton, who had turned on a dime and was moving towards the back door now that he had successfully goaded her into a violent form of tunnel vision.

Chara cursed and sprang into motion. She wasn’t sure if she could damage the thing but if it wasn’t going to fight then that meant it was probably planning to run off and tell someone who c _ould_ give her trouble.

“Get back here, you gaudy excuse for an Ipod!” She ran after him, boots scraping and squeaking against the smooth tiles as she snatched her spear up off the floor. He was making a dash towards the stairs. Maybe someone really was lying in wait over there.

With a little annoyed snarl she gained on him and lunged.

With a loud squeak that one annoying wheel of his reversed directions.  One of his corners scraped against the wall with a nails-on-chalkboard screech that sent a shower of sparks up into the air. His whole body wobbled a bit in an attempt to keep his balance but he pulled through.

Taken by surprise but how agile he could be, Chara missed her mark and tumbled off course. Her shoulder slammed into the wall. In her attempt to keep herself from falling over she took a clumsy step forward, swiping at a fleeing Mettaton with her spear and leaving a little white scrape on his back.

In her frenzied lust for violence she stumbled forward without realizing where she was going. She smashed her toes into the railing of the staircase and fell head over heels onto the moving escalator.

“Ow- fuck!”  She went tumbling head over heels in an ungraceful, perpetual display of flailing limbs. She spent several painful seconds caught falling down the up escalator before she managed to free herself from her graceless floundering.

“Get back here you fucking trashcan!” She shrieked, pushing herself up onto shaky knees and hobbling after him.  Despite having his back turned to her Mettaton knew what had happened and was laughing. “Sorry darling!” He called over his shoulder, “This world needs stars more than it needs corpses! Toodles!”

Chara limped after him, leaving a trail of shrieking curses in her wake. She could feel Rain stirring inside her, laughing at her and sending her images of them suck inside a dryer, tumbling head over heels amidst a collection of underwear.

“Oh, you think this is funny?”

_“Yes.”_

She dove deep inside their mind and ensnared Rain in a net of seething shadow and dragged her kicking and screaming up to the front of her mind. She didn’t give her any control but she had a trick she wanted to try.

Rain’s presence gasped and recoiled. Chara made sure her awareness was resting just under their skin, a buffer between Chara and the pain. “Not so funny now, is it?” She snapped. She wiped a trickle of blood from her lip and glared out the door. The metal box was making good time on that one little wheel of his.

She broke into a run. Rain groaned and tried to shrink back but Chara wouldn’t let her. “If you don’t like it, then heal us.” She ordered, tearing out of the lab and running down the warm, red sand path. Maybe she could still catch up to him. He had to be important somehow, so she wanted him dead.

If she couldn’t hurt him then she would just kick his wheel out from under him and toss him over the edge into the lava. Just thinking about it made her feel a little better.

Mettaton continued to lead her away from the lab, making sure to stay just close enough to continue to encourage the chase until the building was out of sight.

Chara remained blessedly oblivious to the little crack in the fake bathroom door that had closed behind her as she left. She never heard Alphys bringing the elevator back online or her whispered prayers of mercy for her friend as she descended into the darkness far below their running feet.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another fairly short one. May toss up an extra chapter this week to make up for it.


	15. A ghost and a dead man shook hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **A ghost and a dead man shook hands**
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> Mettaton finds out that the king isn't coming and someone is messing with the power.  
> It looks like its time for the Ungerground's brightest start to take fate into his own hands.

What a gross waste of time. That flamboyant aluminum box of sardines had led her on a wild goose chase. She realized far too late into the pursuit that he had been toying with her the whole time. The moment she had managed to corner him he just took flight and shot out of there like a rocket, insults scrolling across his screen as he waved farewell in an arc overhead.

She felt Rain stir inside of her, curling up like a pleased cat thanks to this petty victory. She was glad that someone out there was smart enough to play as something other than the hero. It was her belief that whoever this Alphys character was, they were damn smart to know it was best no to fight them. That knowledge seemed to be present in their robotic creation as well.

Chara grumbled to herself about having allowed the robot to get away. She should have known better. She had been so patient and sneaky when she had been the lesser of the two entities in control of this body. Now that she was free of Rain’s restraints she had overdone it in her excitement. She needed to remember to keep a level head. Asgore could still come out and ruin her after all. It was a wonder that he hadn’t already.

Curious, really.

She continued the long and arduous journey to the capital. She could feel New Home calling to her like a lost childhood song only just now being remembered.

Childhood. Hah! Was she still a child? Had she ever really been one?

A thought for another day perhaps.

Either way, it felt strange to be coming home again. Everything was far different from how she remembered it yet still there were memories hidden under the new layers of paint and glit that had been put up over old roads and chipped signs.

Nothing really changed much in the Underground. Even if everyone tried to pretend otherwise.

She took a deep, haggard breath and pushed away strands of sticky hair from her face. The buzz and whirr of machines working to keep everything alive was a constant steampunk-themed white noise in her ear. The swish of rhythmic steam kept pace with her own breath.

She would like to find a place to cool down soon. The chase had worn her out more than she should have let it and in this part of the Underground heat struggled to find new places to escape to. It was quite unpleasant and goading Rain into keeping the heat off of her was difficult. She could still be quite stubborn in her own squirmy  way when she wanted to be.

But Chara did not let that slow her down. She was getting closer to the surface. Closer to the sun. She was almost there now. It felt surreal.

How long had it been since she had last seen her old village anyway? She didn’t know. She didn’t really care to be honest. She was just ready for it to be over. She was ready to wipe everything clean so she could rest. Who knows, after this world fell quiet she may even try and move on to the next one. If she was strong enough.

She kept going. Her spear felt warm in her hand. Its weight was reassuring. She had not had the opportunity to use it much thanks to the evacuation but that would soon change.

…Soon _all_ of this would change.

***

Going back was technically an option.  He didn’t know much about Alphys’s “True Lab” aside from the revelation that it existed but he would not be surprised if she had some way of keeping an eye out for stragglers.

Yet the choice seemed like some distant half-baked plan to him now. He had allowed the human to chase him this far. He had had his grand exit and done his job. He should take a bow and head out. But now he realized that something was up. The stakes were perhaps much higher than he had originally thought.

It was everyone’s belief that sooner or later the human and Asgore would collide and that would be the end of it. From this tragedy Asgore would at long last have the last soul needed to break through the barrier and they would be free. The human would be dead and the Underground would be safe once more. Her execution would be the eager price paid for their freedom.

But as Mettaton found himself alone on a nearly abandoned street, watching the human prey on anyone caught unaware like it was some sick sport, he could not help but wonder where his mighty king had gone.

Something was up and as he shadowed the human he caught disturbing snippets of conversation she had only with herself. Should she manage to pull off the impossible and kill the king- which at this point Mettaton was starting to consider a possibility- it did not sound like she was going to be happy with just escaping the Underground. No, it sounded like she would carry on with her rampage on the surface as well.

Mettaton had never really been a big fan of the idea of the total destruction of humanity. He had always been rather fond of the idea of humans. _This_ little abomination however… well, the proof was in the pudding. There was something seriously wrong with her.

At first Mettaton hung back instead of seeking shelter because as the marvelous new reporter that he was, he believed it his duty to be there to record and relay Asgore’s triumph over the human when he eventually caught up to her.

…But no one came.

The human cut deeper and deeper into the Hotland, drawing closer and closer to the Core. Mettaton began to feel some strange unsettling feeling collecting in the pit of his existence; like a cold mildew that seeped into his surrounding wires and circuits. 

She was going on unopposed. And even though she was on foot in the sweltering heat, she seemed to know exactly where she was going and what elevators to use. He often found her prying them open and somehow getting them to work even though they were supposed to have been in lockdown by now.

He thought of what that little kid had said about the dead dummy. He wondered which of his family members she and killed. Were there others that she had found? Would she ever be satisfied?

“Oh, this can hardly end well.” He groaned, finally realizing what he had been contemplating this whole time.

It wasn’t too hard to get ahead of her. Being able to fly short distances certainly had its perks. It also meant that he was able to warn a few stragglers to get off the main road before she got there.

He tried to activate a few of the faulty puzzles as he went, in an attempt to slow her down. He had seen Alphys do it remotely a few times in the past and figured he had a fair idea of how to reboot things but he was met with uncanny opposition.

“Come on you silly old thing. Why now of all days did you have to go and experience technical difficulties?” He lamented, trying to at least pull one of the elevators offline before she got to it. They were supposed to be locked in evacuation mode and only go down, but someone must have switched them back to their normal setting.

Luckily for all of monster and human kind, Mettaton had become fairly proficient in the manipulation of chips and wires. Electronic and robotic maintenance was simply a given when you had a body like his.

He pulled the panel away and gave a start, digital face blinking in surprise when the panel came away with an unusual degree of resistance. He backed up a bit in surprise. “What’s this?” Under the panel there was a tangled mess of green and brown tendrils jamming some settings in place and shielding others from tampering.  He reached out with a tentative hand and pulled one of the fibrous strands away to examine it more closely.  It was organic.

“Roots?” He twirled it between his fingers to be sure.  “Vines?”

He turned around in surprise when the elevator dinged and the door began to shut behind him. The human was already at the station down below and was attempting to call it down. He spun back around to the panel, a wave of panic washing over him as the door began to close. Well, he didn’t really need to fix the elevator to get his desired result, right?

He grasped a thick bundle of exposed wires and roots in his fist. “Nope!” He declared, ripping everything out of the wall and wheeling out of the closing door with the trail of colorful wires and ugly tendrils trailing behind him like victory streamers.

She would have to go the long way around now.

He raced ahead, searching for any sign of what may have gone wrong in order to cause their defenses to falter and their king to be delayed. On more than one occasion he found another faulty elevator that he used to get a few levels ahead of her, often pausing just long enough to find a familiar tangle of roots behind the panel that he had to tear away in order to set things back to their proper setting before moving on.

He ran into a few more fleeing residents that he instructed to go hide in any other direction than the one they had been heading in. He made a great show of being confidant and overplaying his heroic deeds and personal confidence in the king in front of these frightened people. After all, as an entertainer it was always his job to give his audience hope. Even if his own was starting to wane.

He didn’t encounter his first Royal Guardsmen until he had nearly reached his own resort.

Relief, frustration, confusion, and a dozen other emotions raced through him like bursts of electricity. He could practically feel his core overheating from the stress of it all.  It took a good deal of self-control to keep from just waving his hands in the air and shouting frustrated profanities at them.

“Is that Mettaton?” One of them droned, his deep voice echoing inside his helmet as Mettaton turned the corner and hurried into view.

“Dude, like, I think it is! We like, thought you evacuated with the last wave.” The second balked.

“Well an unexpected arrival put a damper on that.” Mettaton explained, dusting himself off and standing a little straighter. “The human broke into the lab and I had to draw her back out.”

While the second guard stood in awe of this, the first and more solemn of the two cut right to the chase. The leather grip of his weapon squeaked under the strength of his tightening fists. “And where is the human now?”

“Not far behind me, I imagine. The little terror is on the warpath tonight. If you don’t mind me asking- where the _hell_ is Asgore?”

“Oh man, Mettaton, it’s like, super complicated. A lot of really strange stuff keeps-”

“We are not sure he ever got Alphys’s message.”

Mettaton balked. This flipped everything on its head.  For once he was speechless. “What?”

“A large part of New Home is stuck in a blackout. Communications are down. Automated Core defense systems have been acting strange and with the majority of Core workers having been evacuated, progress has ground to a halt.”

It felt like someone had just dropped a ton of bricks on his head. Really? Now? Was the whole world literally turning against them on this?

He waved his hands in exasperation. “Well then send someone in on foot to go tell him! Or do I have to go do everything myself?”

“Dude, that’s just it!” The second guard fidgeted with unease. “We have sent three messengers to go see what’s up and make sure Asgore got the news. But once they entered the communication dead zone that was like, it. They never reported back and we can’t keep sending dudes out there with messages. Our defenses are stretched thin enough as it is.”

Mettaton sighed. “So it’s not just the elevators then.”

“What do you mean?” The dragon guard rumbled, standing up a little straighter.

“They were still accessible from the lower levels, their settings protected by strange overgrowth. I did what I could to slow the human down but she will be here soon. I really don’t think we have enough time to sit here and chat about the details.” His mind was racing. Things were bad. If Asgore was literally in the dark about all this then there was a chance the human could still beat him and take his soul after all. The more he learned about the situation the more he began to fear that outcome.  With some reluctance his mind turned to Alphys. It was possible that she would know how to break past whatever was causing the communications to go dark. If only he could reach her…

He interrupted his own train of thought with an idea. “Hmm. Yes. I do believe I have a plan.” He tapped at the space between his screen and his buttons. “Gentlemen, as is common when meeting members of the Royal Guard, it has been a pleasure. But I’m afraid we must part ways. I think it may be possible for me to still reach Dr Alphys. She may be able to help us break through the blackout but I’m going to need some time.”

The more stern of the two guards clapped him on the top right side of his box with an armored hand in the area he must have interpreted as Mettaton’s nonexistent shoulder. The unexpected weight was enough to make him bob off kilter a little. “You better get out of there then. The human will have to pass this way sooner or later. We will handle her when she comes. Buy you some time. “

The other guard nodded, gripping his own weapon in anticipation, long white ears standing at attention. “Yeah! We still got a bone to pick with her after what she did to Undyne!”

Mettaton’s screen flashed with an appreciative smile. How fitting that it was synthetic. He wondered if they were as aware as he was of their chances against the human. Alphys really did seem to be the only one who had been smart enough to beat the little terror thus far. The trick seemed to be to refuse to play the same game as her.

He felt a darkness growing over his shoulder. Time was of the essence now. But he knew better than to let his own mounting dread get the best of him while in front of an audience. He was an actor after all. “Give her hell, boys.” He shook their hands in farewell- the hands of dead men- and carried on.

He had work to do.

He saw the glorious lights of his fabled resort long before the building itself came into view.  At least he knew that the issues with the Core had touched his own establishment yet.

Despite the ever-growing chaos clawing at his back, seeing his resort filled him with a sense of courage and resolve. The MTT resort was a stunning location to behold. Truly it was a monument to what monsters could achieve if they really tried. It was a beacon of Hope in a world that had once been dulled with despair.

…It also gave him an excuse to make lots of things in the shape of his face.

But the streets were quiet and empty now. No bustling visitors lined up outside to cheer as he rounded the corner. A warm breeze that had managed to escape Hotland sent a flock of dirty burger wrappers skittering by in a dark alleyway like twitching rats. The foreboding grim of the Underground’s darkness hour left a heavy feeling in the air but that sober silence had hardly left a mark on his glorious if not somewhat empty resort. It continued to shine on as it always had, even though there were no other monsters there to see it.

When Mettaton checked the door it was still unlocked, the sign in one window still read as “Open.”

He was torn between sentimentality and annoyance by this. It was heartwarming to imagine his employees being so loyal to their cause that they were willing to stay behind in some poetic “we sink with our ship” type of gesture. But in reality all the rooms were quiet and empty, so they were just wasting power that he would have to pay for later. Not to mention the idea of that foul little devil wandering in through an unlocked door and scuffing up his carpets with her dusty boots was enough to send a shiver down his back.

Mettaton ducked inside. He didn’t like seeing the resort so empty. He called out once or twice to make sure he truly was alone on his way to the elevator. It wouldn’t do to have that little hellspawn murdering his most loyal employees after all. Luckily no one answered.

He took the elevator up to his own personal section of the building on the top floor. He was relived to find that _his_ elevator had not gone and spontaneously grown roots or vines. That was not the MTT way!

His penthouse was garnished only with the best and the finest the Underground had to offer. Lush red carpet- his favorite kind to walk on- spectacular views of the cavern framed by massive windows and several shelves full of glinting awards sat on display in polished wood cabinets all came together in the finest interpretation of luxury. Various show posters and his own memorabilia plastered large portions of the luscious purple walls to the point that you could hardly see the paint anymore.

Off in the far corner there was a computer. It was a little less flashy than the rest of the room. It was an old gift from Alphys that he had never quite gotten around to replacing with something nicer. It still had some of her old sticky notes with his favorite body concept sketches stuck to the sides of the monitor. He couldn’t help but smile internally just a bit when he saw those notes. As he booted up the computer he contemplated all that she had done for him over the years. It had been a while since they had done more than exchange pleasantries and updates over the Undernet since he had become a star.

A hand went over to the dent in his side, a souvenir from his encounter with the human. That blow probably would have killed him if Alphys had not made his current model so sturdy. He resolved to try and make up for the way he had been treating her once all this was over. Blooky and the rest of his family too.

...If they were still alive.

He pulled out his phone and tried to reach the lab while he waited. It came as no surprise when no one answered. He wasn’t exactly sure how far down that elevator of hers went but there was probably enough solid rock between the two of them to prevent his calls from getting through. That or the silly goose had forgotten to bring her phone down with her in her panic.

The computer finished booting up and greeted him with a simulation of his own voice.

 He had needed something to match the screensaver of himself.

“Alright Alphys, don’t fail me now darling.”  His fingers began to fly across the keys.

Back when Alphys had first given him a body, she had been paranoid about something going wrong and hurting him. She had given him a special emergency contact code in the event that something malfunctioned.  She had assured him that she had set things up so that no matter where she was she would get his message. Now that he knew about her deep dark secret lab, he had a gut feeling that this was where she had been going that had caused her to become paranoid about missing regular calls in the first place.

He booted up her special program and started up the IM system. God, it had been ages since he had used this thing. The last message they had exchanged was still in his history log, several years old.

He began to type.

**MTT:** _Alphys, are you there?_

The seconds ticked by. A little animated emoji in Alphys’s likeness ran in place by his message with a little envelope held above her head. The words “User is offline. Delivering message to next appliance…” blinked across the screen for what felt like an eternity.

He sighed and drummed his fingers against the desk.

Suddenly the little yellow avatar disappeared and the text changed.

_Message sent!_

_Message received!_

If Mettaton could breathe, he would have been holding his breath.

_Alphys is typing…_

He couldn’t help but beam at that little message. “Why did I ever even doubt you, darling?”

**_Alphys:_ ** _METTATON?! OH MY GOD! YOU ARE ALIVE! I WAS SOAFRAID WHARHAPPENED?_

_Alphys is typing…_

**_Alphys:_ ** _Sorry, caps. Are you ok? is it safe to come out yet? I tried to access some of the security cameras but a lot of them seem to be glitching. Did Asgore stop the human?_

Mettaton took a deep synthetic breath and began to type.

**_MTT:_ ** _No. She is still out there. She will catch up to me again soon so I can’t talk long. Something is wrong with the Core. The Royal Guards said that the security systems won’t stay online and now power has gone out in a large part of New Home. Communications are down in the capitol so no one even knows if the king got your message._

_Message received._

_Alphys is typing…_

_Alphys is typing…_

_Message received._

_Alphys is typing..._

_Message received._

_Alphys is typing…_

**_Alphys:_ ** _He doesn’t know? oh my god. I don’t know if he can stop her if he doesn’t know to absorb the souls! Convincing the souls to do anything is not easy for him, Mettaton! He needs time to do that! Do you know what’s causing the issue? Oh god, all the Core workers have evacuated haven’t they? No one is left to try and fix it._

She was panicking now. He had to try and draw her back on track.

**_MTT:_ ** _Stay with me, Alphys. That’s where you come in. I was hoping you may be able to work your magic and give me a solution. Forget about the puzzles and the power outage for now. If we can just get the phones back up and running in New Home for a few minutes we can still save this. Use that brilliant brain of yours. Is there anything we can do?_

Once again the chat cycled through several notifications that his message had been received and that Alphys was typing and then apparently erasing everything she had said before she managed to say anything at all.

**_Alphys:_ ** _um I don’t know. maybe? Do you know what’s wrong?_

**_MTT:_ ** _No I have not gone out there myself yet. I’m in the resort right now. It still has its Undernet connection but between all these problems and you being so far underground, I don’t know if I will be able to talk once I go into the Core. I doubt I will be able to loop back around to the resort again once I leave. The Royal Guard is buying me time but I don’t know how much of it I have._

**_Alphys:_ ** _Oh my god. Uh ok. hold on. some of the Core workers are down here with me. we will try to work something out._

The wait was agonizing. He was all for pausing for dramatic effect but with the way things were going it felt like every second was dragging on for an eternity. Over the next few minutes Alphys gave him one false alarm after the other as she asked questions about the situation in her attempts to get a feel for what had gone wrong. Each time she began to type he jumped a little, ethereal heart racing on new bursts of excitement over the assumption that her next message would be the one he was waiting for.

Mettaton kept glancing out of one of his many windows in the growing paranoia that he would see the dust covered silhouette of his newest stalker making her way down the road soon.

When he got the notification that Alphys was typing again several minutes later, he found himself gripping his screen in both hands and muttering for her to hurry up. “Come on Alphys, I have seen you text a magazine column’s worth of material in under a minuet. Now is not the time for spellcheck!”

**_Alphys:_ ** _ok I think we got it. or at least I hope so. we don’t have a lot to go on so there is no guarantee any of this will work._

**_MTT:_ ** _Some Hope is better than none._

**_Alphys:_ ** _the Core workers have helped me type out some basic commands for the Core that should run a diagnostic. We are in luck. One of these guys specializes on repair and had a bunch of his repair shortcuts on a USB already. I’m going to send you the whole file and you will need to take it down to the Core. find an access point and plug it in. give it time to do its thing and when it finds the problem it should give you step by step instructions on how to fix it. ok?_

**_MTT:_ ** _Alphys darling, you are practically a goddess. Send the link. I will leave at once._

**_Alphys:_ ** _are you sure you want to do this MTT? Maybe you should give this to one of the guards and go find someplace safe to hide. You have done enough, haven’t you?_

His fingers were flying across the keyboard in response before he had even finished reading her message.

**_MTT:_ ** _they have enough on their plate. Besides, it’s probably best if they stuck to the sword swinging and let the monster with the mechanical body do the technical stuff. You wouldn’t want to rob me of my finest hour, would you darling?_

**_Alphys:_ ** _yeah…ok. just… stay safe, alright? if you see her just run. Ok? I don’t want to lose you too._

She sent him the link. Mettaton descended upon it like some sort of starving animal, uploading it onto his personal USB. He bid Alphys a hasty farewell and bolted without bothering to wait for a reply. He didn’t even shut the window down before he left. He rushed back into the elevator, excitement and dread running through his wires like uneven jolts of electricity. His finest hour was upon him. All of monster kind would be counting on their favorite star to save the day.

The elevator doors began to close. He pivoted around in surprise. He had not pushed any buttons yet.

The lift was being called down to the first floor.

“Oh dear. That can’t be good.” He stuck out a hand and caught the closing doors, pushing them back open again.

The Elevator dinged and the doors tried to close again.

“Ah, nope. Not going to happen.” He pushed the doors open again with one hand and reached for the emergency stop button.

Someone tried to call the elevator down a third time.

“It’s occupied, I’m afraid.” He sniffed, locking things down and waiting with his back against the wall.

Maybe it was just a scared monster looking for a place to hide. Or an employee who had missed the memo.

But then again…maybe not.

How long had he been up here? Thirty minutes? How long had it taken him to get here? Could the human have caught up to him by now?

No, no this couldn’t be happening. Not now. He had work to do!

He waited several minutes in the tense silence, straining to hear some whisper of a sound that may tip him off to what was going on. He couldn’t stay up here forever.

When what he hoped was an adequate amount of time had passed, he removed the lock on the elevator’s commands and descended back down to the first floor. It felt like a dramatic decent into hell, his back ridged, face stoic. The cheery elevator music and the meek little ding that sounded on his arrival to the first floor did not put a dent in this interpretation.

The door slid open, slower than usual in his mind. He peered out of the widening crack, listening for footsteps or voices. The resort was bathed in friendly, bright lighting that reached into all of its far corners.  Yet he still felt like something could be lurking in every shadow or behind any and every corner.

He inched out into the main room.

He snuck along, senses heightened and alert. He was exceedingly glad that he always made sure his wheel was well oiled because he was gliding by as silently as…well, as a ghost.

He lurched to a halt when something over by the fountain caught his eye. Red and white stains in the carpet. Blood and dust.

“Uhuh. Sure. Like I would really want to buy any of your weird dusty items off of you.” A familiar voice snarked.

Mettaton straightened up and hid behind the fountain shaped in his golden likeness. “Oh no.” He groaned, hardly believing what he was hearing. “Of all the days he decides to take his job seriously enough to come in late, why did he have to choose today?” He peeked over the golden glit of his statue. The doors to the small fast food joint had been propped open so he could see inside now. Sure enough one of his employees was standing behind the counter, his little paper hat askew between his fuzzy orange ears.

“Oh come on. It’s perfectly good, see? Who knows what it could open up.” A second voice teased.

“Seriously lady?” He laughed, his voice cracking a little. “You want me to give you free food in exchange for some stupid misshapen house key? If you want to go swap trash with someone, go visit the ally out back.”

The human was leaning up against the counter, putting on a casual act. She had her cloak tugged tightly around her lower half. There were a few droplets of blood pooling under her. Her words started out as a seductive purr that quickly took a nosedive into a pool of venom as she laughed, throwing her head back. “You really are a special shade of _stupid_ , aren’t you? Don’t you know who I am? Or did your depression -brought on by your own pathetic existence- cause you to sleep in past the memo?”

“Memo?” He squeaked.

“Everyone has evacuated! Vicious genocidal human on the loose. Didn’t you know?”

The kid laughed and attempted to straighten his hat but only succeeding to make it sit all the more crooked. “Evacuation? Heh, you’re yanking my chain, you weirdo.”

 “Oh but I’m not! Everyone is dead. I killed them. It was quite funny the way they would run or cry when I dusted their friends. But if you decide to be a nice little cat thing and make me some food, I will let you go.” She purred.

Mettaton could see a weapon gripped in her hand, held just below the counter and hidden by the her dirty cloak sleeve. Even without seeing her face he could practically feel her venom and honey smile trying to bore a hole through the guy.

“Everyone is dead, huh?”  The kid smiled, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket and lighting it. The reality of the whole situation seemed to be flying right over his little fuzzy little ears. “Boy if that were true, weirdo, if that were true. It would be nothing but vacation days for me from then on out.” He cleared his throat and tapped a paw against the counter. “So you gonna buy something or not? I shouldn’t be talking to you if you’re not going to buy something.”

Reaching the end of her patience, the human sighed in annoyance and revealed her weapon. “Oh forget it. I will just climb over there and get it myself!” In a flash of iron she struck at him. There was an audible crack and her hand went flying back, bouncing off of an unseen barrier.

The kid chuckled; smoke rising out of his nose. “Threats won’t work on me, you little weirdo. Mettaton may be hell to work with but he takes care of his stuff.  One-way Anti-magic bullet barrier- works on other stuff too. I can toss cheap food at you all day from this side but if anything too large or too fast tries to pass through on your end? Blocked.”

Mettaton began to slowly back away. It looked like the field would hold. If he was lucky the human would continue to try to draw his last remaining employee out into the open for a while longer. So long as the kid was smart enough to stay behind the vendor shield there would be a stalemate. The little guy would be ok. Probably.

“Sorry kid, you’re on your own this time. Play it smart.” He pleaded, inching back to the elevator. He had been hoping that he would have enough time to get to the Core on foot so as to avoid any potential technical difficulties the elevator may have if he tried to ride it all the way there. But if the human had already made it this far then he was just going to have to risk it. If he did run into any issues and got stuck in the blackout zone he could fly out of the escape hatch.

At least this way she couldn’t get into his pent house. He really didn’t want anyone messing with his stuff during the apocalypse.

He slipped back inside the elevator and set its destination for the Core. The doors slid shut on the resort, cutting him off from the voice of the increasingly agitated human, who was now making loud insulting comments in an attempt to lure her prey out from the safety of his shop.

There was a heavy weight growing inside of him for leaving one of his employees with her but right now that was probably the safest place the little guy could be. The human’s interest would falter long before the magic barrier did. At least that’s what he hoped would happen.

God, he sure hoped this worked.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one came in a little late. not feeling so hot. @_@


	16. Tin Men Don’t Need Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Tin Men Don’t Need Hearts**
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Time to go fix the Core

As it turned out he did end up having to abandon the elevator half way through the trip. Getting out of it was a nightmare but it still gave him a good head start against the human. Fortune seemed to smile upon him once he reached the Core. A small division of Royal Guardsmen were there already. Some of them clearly should have been enjoying their retirement but had chosen to take up old weapons once more in order to bring Hope to the Underground in its darkest hour. Others were simply brave volunteers who had stayed behind when they could have fled. Mettaton would call them foolish for trying to act the hero but at this point he had to admit with some reluctance and a grimace that he had allowed himself to get sucked up into this whole ordeal right along with them.

“Mettaton. Why are you here?” A massive armored figure asked, her deep, smooth voice seeming to echo inside parts of her armor. The face in her belly gave her away as a Knight Knight. She seemed to be one of the more imposing members of her band. Her followers consisted of a few court magi, an old but wise looking Froggit and the occasional Winsum who had donned polished armor for the occasion. They stood out the most among the civilians, such as a few of the older members of the Eyewalker family.

“Same reason the rest of you are here, I’m afraid. Still no word from the king?”

“I’m afraid not.” She rumbled. “We sent two of our own into the blackout zone a few minutes ago and have not heard anything from them yet. We just finished evacuating the rest of the stragglers. We are planning to split our forces now that everyone is out. One half will form a blockade while the other tries to penetrate this terrible darkness one last time.”

Mettaton looked into the eyes of the last remaining members of the Royal Guard. Their faces were shaded by grim shadows as they gripped their weapons and stood like they were bracing themselves against an unrelenting wind. Hm, loyal to a fault and stubborn till the end it seemed.

“Actually, I have a better idea, if you would be willing to humor me.” He held up a hand and displayed the USB for a brief moment before hiding it away again. “I was able to contact Dr. Alphys and some of the Core workers she is hiding. They sent me something that may be able to identify and fix the power problem. If you can give me enough time to use it, I may be able to get the phones back online long enough to send a message through.

There was no hesitation. No looks exchanged between the group. They simply nodded in agreement. “What do you require of us?”

“Time. I just came from the resort. The human is already there. I used the elevator to get ahead of her but I lost precious minutes when I neared the Core and my transport broke down.”

“It already broke into the resort?” One of the Eyewalkers gasped.

“but that means- 01 and 02...” A Wimsum murmured, jaw set against the wave of emotion that hit the whole group at once as they realized what the human's progress meant.

“We will honor them.” The Knight Knight rumbled. “01, 02, the canine unit of Snowdin, Undyne, the innocent residents of the Underground…” She gripped her staff in both massive hands and stood to her full height, casting a long shadow over the rest of the monsters in her presence. “We will honor them and their bravery with our own.”  Then she stooped down a little so that both her faces could somewhat align with Mettaton’s. “We will give you what time we can. Angle guide you, Mettaton.” She rested her weapon over one shoulder and thundered: “Move out! The human will be here soon. Blockade her within these walls. Give our friend all the time he needs.”

With a series of snapped salutes the band moved out, a few of the civilians looking over their shoulder one last time as they backtracked to some choke point deeper within the Core.

Mettaton caught the eye of more than one monster as they departed and wondered if that would be the last thing he would ever see of them: grim eyes looking back.

He made his trek to the access port on his own from there. The halls seemed dark and narrow now that he was by himself again.

Usually the Core was churning with activity. Workers running maintenance, off duty Royal Guardsmen on their way to enjoy a meal at the MTT resort, random groups of people making their way home after a day of work or conversation; things like that. But it was all empty now. Dark and quiet.

The room he needed was unlocked. It was a relatively small room. The lights had dimmed into a shade of twilight in the absence of the Core’s workers. He tried to lock the door but he wasn’t too sure if it worked. The system was acting funny. 

He slipped his USB into the nearest port and began to initiate the diagnostic; all the while feeling an ever growing shadow pressing against his back.

This was it then. He was basically the last person standing between the human and Asgore now.

What if the diagnostic took too long? What if the problem was more complicated than they thought it would be and he wouldn’t be able to fix it on his own?

He watched that pitiful percentage mark slowly climb higher and higher. It was a horribly anticlimactic way to save the world.

Was he saving the world? That’s what it felt like. The more he thought about it the more he began to fear that the human would not just be satisfied with cutting a path of dust up to the king.

“Damn this program.” He grumbled, leaning over the screen and mentally willing it to go faster. The world was not going to end on a loading screen dammit!

Several painful minuets ticked by, each one more sluggish than the last. 60%. 65%. 70%, 75%.

Someone knocked on the door behind him.

He went rigid and froze. It couldn’t be. Not yet. Not so soon. The last of the Royal Guard, were they already gone?

He prayed that the lock would hold. Just a little bit longer. That was all he needed.

There was a familiar scraping sound and then with a labored shudder of resistance the door creaked open a few inches. It had not locked all the way.

Mettaton looked down at the screen and his little white USB.  78%.

Before he could even hope to cross the distance and force the door shut again manually, it gave way and opened with a displeased creak. A shambling figure wandered into the darkness, panting a little and hunched up against the shadows.

“You.” She breathed, a mix of annoyance and triumph bouncing off the walls.

There was no one left to stall her now.

He laughed softly to himself, realizing he had finally gotten himself in too deep.  But did it really matter? If the human got Asgore’s soul it would all be over. A creature like her with a power like that… my, that would be grim wouldn’t it?  She would use that power to reap from him what little he had left to care about in this world.

He realized he couldn’t let her just walk by without at least _trying_ to stop her. The realization was a cold and silent thought that made him feel grim and queasy. Yet among that nervousness was unflinching acceptance. Even if he couldn’t stop her, he could distract her. If she didn’t notice the program then maybe someone else would come along in time and…?

“I’m sorry Alphys,” He whispered, looking into the bloodshot eyes of the dust covered creature. “It looks like you truly are the only smart one down here.”

The human tilted her head, curious about  his soft muttering.

He straightened himself, clapping as if proud that she had achieved something great instead of terrible.  He braced himself. “My, my. So you have finally arrived. Took the long way around I see.” He taunted. Her clothes had some new holes in them but she didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore.

Mettaton vaguely wondered if the burger kid had stayed behind his counter.

He suddenly felt a stab of guilt at not having bothered to remember the kid’s real name. Ever since an amusing incident in an alleyway he had taken to calling the guy Burgerpants. The slight sat heavy  in his chest now that he realized he would never be able to make up for it.

She glared at him; shoulders slumped in some mix of exasperation and annoyance. “As a matter of fact I _did_ have to come the long way around. And I bet you had something to do with that, didn’t you?” She sniffed.  “So then, are you going to throw more insults at me then fly away again like a coward? I’m in a bit of a hurry. Father never did like me staying out this late.” She shrugged off her own words before he was given a chance to comment on it. “So what brought you all the way out here anyway? You were home free.” She was stalking towards him now, one careful foot placed in front of the other like a cat stalking a bird. “I thought you said all the smart ones would stay out of my way.”

“Oh and that remains to be true, you nasty little creature. But alas, after our first encounter, I realized something ghastly.” He began to inch away from the screen he had been guarding. He took up a spot near the center of the room so that he would be less likely to accidentally draw her attention to the program running in the background. “You are no longer just a threat to monsters, but to humanity as well.”

She tilted her head to the side. “Very good.”

He tapped a finger against his screen as if in thought and sighed. “See now, therein lies the problem. I can’t exactly be a star without an audience, now can I?” He began to access an old program of his. He had never really thought he would have to use _that_ old thing. He wasn’t even sure if it worked properly anymore. Alphys had removed a lot of the old components to make room for the new body she had been working on for him. But his old form still had a gun and sometimes all the hero really needs is a big ass gun.

This was it. He was really going to do this. He felt the vague hope that maybe seeing a more humanoid face may call back some scrap of her humanity but the look in her eyes told him not to hold his breath.

 He could feel the systems booting up, causing his insides to heat up a little. “Besides, you foul little creature you, there are still people left in this world that I want to protect.”

She took a few bold steps towards him, that rudimentary weapon of hers at the ready.

He wheeled backwards just as far as she stepped forward. He laughed and waggled a finger at her, stalling for a little more time. “Eager as always I see. But don’t touch that dial! For you see, there is something you haven’t accounted for!”

Just a few more seconds.

From deep inside his body a whirling sound began to press against the confines of his shape.

The human took a wary step back.

He smiled. “As any true fan would know, I was first created as a human eradication robot!”

She cocked an eyebrow. A gleam of worry danced in her eye. “You can’t be serious.”

“Of course I am. It was only after becoming a star that I was given a more… _photogenic_ body. However, those original functions have never fully been removed. Come any closer and I will be forced to show you my true form!”

She scowled for a moment then shrugged. “What the hell, its not like I don’t have backups. I’m calling your bluff.”

His heart sank. He had been hoping she would have more of a self-preservation instinct than that. Then again she didn’t seem to be in her right mind anyway- if the little terror had ever had one to start with. “Fine then.” He sighed, the whirling noise growing louder as his outer shell began to fall away. He wouldn’t need its protection now anyway. She had consumed too much power on her way to the Core. Her intent to kill would eat through his armor one way or another, wouldn’t it? “Ready?” He took a deep, bracing breath. “Iiiit’s show time!”

In a cloud of smoke set aglow by the blaring strobe of his own lights, his old body  components came together. Joints locked into place, long forgotten systems powering up and sending a hum of energy through his body while his rectangular shell tumbled to the ground. He took on a more humanoid shape; an old power, now rediscovered, shining in his eyes like burning stars. He was taller than her now- and thanks to the thrusters in his shoulder guards, he would be faster too.

He stretched, gleaming eyes set upon the surprised human. He planted one foot forward and activated his boosters. They sprang to life with a roar.

The human shielded her eyes from the light of his new form. “And I thought the rectangle look was bad.” She spat, charging forward with a sneer.

Mettaton rushed forward, his boosters roaring with a brilliant flare of fire- only to cut off a second later with a spluttering whine.

 His face fell in surprise, the light from the boosters becoming a pulsing strobe. The heat warmed his back and tried to push him forward but the effort was feeble.

He had been flying around all day.

 _Out of fuel._ He realized, taking a step back just in time to avoid a frenzied swipe from the human. 

He stumbled away, body clanking against itself in his surprised fumble. He lowered his right arm, his hand cannon humming with energy that began to collect deep within the barrel. Alright, if speed wouldn't be on his side he would have to rely on firepower alone!

The human spun around, keeping low to the ground and charging him.

The gun stuttered and shook, the light it had gathered beginning to fade and scatter once more.

He looked down at his weapon in surprise. “Oh dear.”

It had been a long time since he had done any maintenance on the old thing. 

In the brief moment that he had spared to look down at his failing features, Chara slammed her shoulder into his chest.  She drew back her free arm and plunged her sharpened spear tip deep into a soft spot in his waist.

A sharp burst of pain ran through him. His mouth opening in a gasp of surprise. It felt  like someone had just tossed him into icy cold water.

“Oh.” He quavered, falling forward over her shoulder. His body felt so incredibly heavy all of a sudden. He tried to recover but his movements were sluggish, his grasp of control over his synthetics rapidly becoming sloppy and muddled.

She tilted to one side and pushed him away; shrugging off his weight and coming in for another jab before realizing she had already won. The blow stopped short, a brief moment of conflict screwing up her face as she looked down at him. Something sad and desperate flashed over her eyes and her hand trembled before the darkness retook possession of her features.

The human lowered her arm and closed her eyes for a moment to compose herself. “What?” She laughed, “That’s it? That’s was your final stand? This is the killing machine _the great Dr. Alphys_ has unleashed on me? I was hoping for something better but I guess your nothing more than a pathetic show-bot, aren’t you, _**darling**?_ ”

Mettaton fell to one knee, struggling to prop himself up with his faulty cannon arm. His good hand went up to his waist to try and stop the white light and deep black oil from seeping out of his body. He laughed sheepishly, forcing a smile. “G… guess she should have worked more on my defenses, huh?” He fell forward onto all fours, still trying to stop the white glow from leaking away into the darkness. His soul was slipping out.

It was hard to believe that it was going to end like this after having come so far. “You may have defeated me, b…but… I know. I know your secret now. I saw it. There is still…something good in you. You held back.” He collapsed, his body making a loud clatter as it hit the floor.

She was looming over him now, face cloaked in shadow, spear tip brushing against the floor beside him. He looked over the arc of her boots and cast one last look at the computer screen off in the corner. The program was still running. She still hadn’t noticed.

Words were becoming difficult now. Slow and painful. “Yes, Asgore will fall to you. But you won’t harm humanity…will you?” That last part came out sounding more like a feeble plea than a confirmation.

 She was laughing over the top of his words but he didn’t care. The pain was numbing now. He felt tired and at peace. “You aren’t…absolutely evil. Even if you’re trying to be, you messed up. And so late in the show too…” He chuckled; the light was fading from his eyes.

The human tilted her head. “Ah, yes, sorry about that. She tends to get a little uppity at times. But don’t worry,” she crouched down next to him so that he could see her toothy grin and tired eyes. They were bloodshot and red. That internal conflicted continued to rage on inside of her, hidden from view to all but him. 

She leaned in and whispered, “I will have that annoying little spark of good snuffed out by the time I get outside. I promise.”

Sparks were beginning to shoot out from his joints, the deterioration of his soul causing his mechanical body to fall apart. The darkness was seeping in from the corners of his vision now.

What happened to a ghost that managed to get itself killed, anyway?

Ah well, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

He looked past her; it was getting hard to see the computer screen. The diagnostic was almost done. He couldn’t help but smile at that. Surely someone would come and find it? Someone would be able to stop her, thanks to him? 

He smiled. “Hah…hah… At least…. I can rest easy now. Knowing Alphys and the humans will…live on.”

***

The light faded from his eyes. _Like dying stars_. Chara mused.  His body began to fall apart, several mechanical parts spitting fire and sparks as they fell away now that there was no longer a soul there to keep them unified.

She patted his detached head, eyes dark and smoking. “Look Rain,” she cooed, “a fallen star.”

Rain’s screaming presence fought against the tendrils of shadows that held her in place, causing Chara to giggle all the more.

She gave Mettaton the once over in hopes she might find something useful, or at the very least a trophy. She wanted his gun but it needed power to operate so it was useless to her.

With a grimace of disappointment she got up and left him. His shell did not turn to dust like the others did but what he had left behind was useless and smoldering.  How disappointing.

Ever since she had entered Hotland things had become quite easy. Annoying and sluggish, yes, but easy. She had gotten a few scrapes and bruises here and there but no one had managed to give her a challenge since Undyne fell.

What a shame. How anticlimactic. Oh well. With no one left in her way she could look forward to seeing the look on her father’s face when she finally came home now.

As Chara pushed her way past another poorly locked door with Rain in tow, she turned her back on the room, its underwhelming guardian, and its single flickering computer screen.

She did not hear the ping that notified the empty room that the diagnostic was complete.

It continued to ping every few minutes after she left. Calling out, letting the world know that it had found the problem and had a solution ready to be implemented.

But nobody came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like there is...blood on the dance flood. >,,>
> 
>  
> 
> Tsk. I really liked coming up with Mettaton's story arc here. Its a shame it didn't work out for him.


	17. brother of mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **brother of mine**  
>  Chara goes for a calming little walk.

The streets were empty. The sidewalk was warm and the air pleasant. Her wounds had been healing nicely, whether Rain liked it or not. They had come so far together. How long had it been? A few weeks? It was hard to tell down here. Hotland had passed by in the blink of an eye compared to the rest of the trip.

Oh well, it didn’t really matter how long it had taken. They were here now. Together. At the end at last. How lovely.

It seemed like only yesterday that Rain had fallen right into her arms and woken her up. That poor, scared, squeamish little girl- look what Chara had managed to do with her! Rain: the girl who fought monsters and won! Guards, civilians and soon even kings would cower in fear before her. Her face had become a symbol of doom overnight and her body a weapon of war.

She made quite a show of parading her new body down the road, twirling her weapon and letting her cloak catch the soft breeze. Undyne’s eyepatch fluttered in the wind like a small grim banner on the end of her makeshift spear. She was growing quite attached to the hunk of steel.

Her boots scraped against the pavement, their flame color having become dulled by dust. 

So many little trophies. So many stolen items to flaunt. Of course out of all of them  Rain was her greatest prize of all. Without catching her none of this would have been possible.

When she at last reached her home the feeling was surreal. It was so familiar and yet enough had changed to make her feel like an impostor.

Well, actually, she _was_ an impostor now. So perhaps it was fitting.

Mother had taken quite a liking to golden flowers back in the Ruins but it seemed that Asgore had taken a much less flashy approach to his front yard. A few dry leaves skittered across her path, blown into the shadow of a few distant bushes. Their skittering dance drew her eye to something moving in the shrubbery off near the corner of the building. She cocked her head, hair swaying in her curiosity.

A tangle of vines was dragging something into the bushes and around the corner. A Whimsalot by the looks of it. Its armor made faint scraping sounds before its slack body was pulled into the dirt, where the vines coiled around it like a knot of hungry snakes and carried it out of sight. A moment later a puff of dust rose up into the air, carried away by the breeze.

“Curious.” She mused, tearing her gaze away from the oddity and trying the door. It was unlocked, no surprise there. Her father always had been stupid enough to do something like that.

She left the tangle of vines to do their thing. She knew that her little follower would come around once he had finished up.

She took a deep breath and let the familiar smell of her old home fill her with nostalgia: old memories of playing with her brother or listening to mother read them stories. Pointless little things like that.

She wandered around for a bit, taking in the sights and smells. She had thought that being here may stir up some old feelings, some long forgotten fondness that would make her hesitate. But it didn’t. Not really.  Not this time. This was not her home. These were only empty rooms to her now. The toys were only dusty mementos. The flowers simple reminders of days now lost to time.

The place was filled with pointless keepsakes. Old drawings, old sweaters, old photos gone gray with time. Everything seemed almost exactly the way she had left it only more faded. Empty.

Perhaps this was a fitting reflection of herself. At least these faded things had endured.

She wasn’t even surprised when she opened the door to her old room and found everything to still be in the exact place she had left it. The room was all nice and tidy save for a box on the floor. That was new. It had a little red ribbon stuck to its top- her favorite color.

Curious, she plopped herself down on her bed with a creak and put the gift in her lap. She pulled the top off and tossed it aside.

“Oh!” She exclaimed, hand darting inside. She couldn’t believe it. They were still here. She had hid them away before her death and had assumed she would ever see them again.

She pulled a golden heart shaped locket from the box and put it around her neck.  The chain had always been a little long for her but it fit an adult just fine.

The second item in the box truly made her heart skip with pleasure. “Hello old friend.” She cooed, pulling a long kitchen knife from the box and holding it up so that it gleamed in the light. It had not even rusted. Someone had taken good care of it for her.

She looked down at her sharpened fire iron and then back to the knife. She had grown rather attached to her makeshift weapon. It had been a trophy from her mother after all and had gotten her this far. She held both items up for exsamination, testing their weight and pondering on which to choose. Which one would she plunge into father’s heart? Which one would she finish the journey with?

She shrugged. “Why not both?” She tucked the fire poker back up her sleeve and slipped the blade into her pant pocket. It was a bit awkward but it would have to do.

She stepped back out into the hall and wandered a bit, taking it all in. Her reflection  caught her attention as she passed a large mirror hung out in the hallways and she stopped to look at herself.  She put her hands on her hips, gave the mirror a big smile and leaned in close to take it all in. She was a dirty mess for sure. Clothes torn up and bloody, dirt under her nails and bloodshot eyes that had circles under them that were so dark that they looked like bruises. Such were the hints of the daily battles waged between herself and Rain. Those battles were becoming shorter and shorter with each passing hour now.

 She turned this way and that. “I sure lucked out, didn’t I?” Long hair, healthy weight, fairly decent height and a smooth face. Of all the bodies she could have gotten, this one wasn’t so bad. Even if she was sort of flat chested and she didn’t quite like how strong her new nose was- but it wasn’t horrible!  She wouldn’t call her new body beautiful but it could pass for pretty.

“You picked a nice one.” A familiar voice said, high and friendly as it echoed her own thoughts. “Sure better than being stuck as flower.” He laughed.

Chara looked away from the mirror and watched as a large golden flower slithered out of a nearby vase on a long knotted vine. It looked and sounded like a large snake sliding across the hardwood floor. He rose up several feet off the ground, coils of vines curling up under him like discarded rope. “Howdy, Chara! You finally made it home!”

“Greetings, Asriel.” She tilted her head and looked at him sideways. “How curious that we would both come back here after so long.”

The flower laughed. “Wow, you could tell it was me?”

“You seemed to have figured it out faster than I did.” She pointed out. “It would seem that sharing a soul leaves a lasting impression.” She brushed past him, uninterested in his grand reveal. She wondered if perhaps father had some snacks stashed away in the kitchen. She had a craving for chocolate.

Asriel trailed after her, head low to the ground as he slithered down the hall, vines seeming to defy reason as they stretched themselves to the point of fading into nothingness just as a new set of entwining green slithered out of the next nearest flower pot and attached themselves to his main stem so that he was always being fed more length to move around with.

He looked up at the various picture frames, humming to himself. “Do you remember when we used to play here?” He chuckled, face twisting into something a bit darker. “Boy, I bet today is going to be just as fun as the good old days, isn’t it?”

Chara swayed along, not bothering to look at him. “Yep.”

 She wandered into the kitchen and checked all the cupboards and shelves. The fridge was full of bachelor food. Things hardly fit for a king in her opinion. No chocolate either. She did however find one of the keys she needed to unlock the path down into the basement. It was usually blocked off by a minor magical barrier that needed two keys to unlock.

Asriel dipped his head and looked into a nearby bin. It was full of crumpled pie recipes. “Oh look, he was trying to recreate mom’s cinnamon butterscotch pie! Man, remember how we used to argue about that? You always wanted cinnamon, I always wanted butterscotch. Finally mom just combined them one day to make us stop fighting. Was pretty good, I think. It’s been so long now since I have had any. Sometimes I miss it.”

“I always hated the stuff. Butterscotch ruined the flavor.” She sniffed, turning around and leaving him to catch up. “So, how did _you_ get here anyway? You should be dead.”

“Hah, I could say the same about you. How…how did you- why? What made you wake up? ” A sheepish little smile graced him. “Did… did you hear me calling to you?”

“It’s simple really. My soul never faded. My Determination was too great. I tried to get back to my own body and revive it but it was too late. It had been dead for too long. I was too weak to do anything so I just sort of… fell asleep." she sighed in thought and tapped her thin with a single fingernail."I suppose mother took me to the Ruins after that. I slept with my body for a long time. Sometimes children would fall down and wake me up for a little while,” she wrinkled her nose, “but they always fought me off when they realized what I was and I would have to go back to sleep.”

She spun on her heels and held out her arms, closing her eyes and beaming. “But then _this_ little coward came along!  She fell down right on top of me! Oh, I hope you were close enough to see it, Asriel! The way she mewed for mercy… for _help_. She was willing to give me anything I wanted! So I took **_everything_**.”

She arrived at the stairway that would eventually lead her to the throne room. A cute little chain and double lock roped off the stairway. The air behind it shimmered faintly in warning of the magic blockade.

She patted her pockets. Ah, she had forgotten the other key hadn’t she?

A vine curled up to waist level, a single intricate turquoise key swaying with the vine’s motions. She snatched it up without a word of thanks and tinkered with the lock. The motions came back in the form of old muscle memory. The chain fell to the ground and the shimmer in the air dissipated. She nudged the empty space with her boot just to make sure then trotted down the stairs.

Asriel followed close behind, vines seeping out of flowerpots and old earthy cracks in the basement floor to carry him along.

“So, where is that father of ours? I know you have been keeping an eye on things, snuffing out the screamers and all that- so I assume you have been watching him for me.”

Asriel practically leapt at the chance to tell her how useful he was. “He’s in the throne room! I kept him in the dark as long as I could but he probably knows something’s up by now.”

“Is he going to absorb the other souls?”

Asriel chuckled. “Him? No. Even now I don’t think he has the guts. He’s not like you and me. He still doesn’t understand this world. That it’s kill or be killed. His delusions make him **soft**.” Chara snorted at this remark. Bitter bile rose in her throat but she forced it back down again. “He did manage to collect six of them though- souls I mean. He’s got them locked away somewhere. I have tried again and again to get him to show them to me but he just won’t.” His face twisted into a vile shape with a jagged maw. “But you… I know he will show them to _you_ , Chara!”

She brushed aside this promise, instead having become focused on his previous statement.  “Kill or be killed? Coming from you, dear brother? My, things really have changed, haven’t they? But you still have not answered my question." She warned. “How are you still _alive_?” Her lip twitched with the word. His existence seemed quite pitiful- I ironic even, considering it had been a golden flower that had killed her the first time around. 

“When you left-”

  _When you abandoned me._ Chara corrected with a mental sneer.

“-I turned to dust. Seeds from the village flowers that had caught in our clothes fell to the earth with that dust. I- I don’t quite remember how the rest happened.” His yellow petals twitched as he squinted in concentration, causing him to fall a few paces behind Chara’s echoing footsteps before he caught back up again. “I think I remember hearing that annoying scientist, Alphys. Alphys did something and I became aware again. I woke up.” He shook his head, petals fluttering. “I was so scared at first. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs.” His green coils pooled under him in thought. “I called out for help you know. 'Mom! Dad! Somebody help me!'” His head tilted sideways, black eyes gleaming, maw gaping in a jagged smile framed in gold. “But nobody came. Not for a long time anyway. Eventually Asgore _did_ find me crying in the garden- took him long enough.” He sniffed; face beginning to mold itself back into that friendly liar’s mask of his. “I told him everything. I explained what had happened and when I was done… he just… held me; tears in his eyes. He kept saying ‘there, there, everything is going to be alright.’ He was so… _emotional_. But for some reason, I didn’t feel anything at all. I… I didn’t feel anything about anyone anymore.” His brow scrunched up. He still seemed to be bothered by this in some deep dark part of his mind.

Chara watched his expressions out of the corner of her eye as they neared the end of the tunnel.

“I spent weeks with that stupid king, vainly hoping I would feel something.” A jagged, hissing sigh seeped out of his teeth. “But in time it became too much for me. I ran away from home and eventually wandered into the Ruins, where I found _her_. I thought of all people-”

“She could make you feel whole again?” Chara completed, nodding knowingly. “And let me guess, she failed!” She chirped, mocking both of their failures.

 Every time she had met Toriel, both as Chara, as Rain and as the other two worthless children, she too had thought that perhaps the kindly queen of monsters would be able to reignite a spark of something within her. But it had never worked. Perhaps it  was because she didn’t have any particular desire to be saved anymore.  Not after what she had gone through. Not after being betrayed by her own brother. Not after waking up to find that Asgore had stopped with the charade and had finally gone directly to collecting children’s souls to finish the job he could not get his own children to complete for him.

Still, it had been frustrating to try and fail as often as she had. Killing Toriel had been a weight off her shoulders in the end.  “You should have just killed her yourself, Asriel. It did wonders for me.”

“Oh, I did kill her, Chara!” He chirped, once again eager to please and fit in beside her. “Again and again and again! But eventually I stopped bothering. Even that stopped evoking emotion after a while. Going out of my way to find her every reset became a waste of time. So I let her live- it was sometimes funny to watch her cry. In the end she was very lonely.”

Chara opened the door at the end of the hall and warm synthetic sunlight spilled into the darkness. Asriel slipped through the closing door behind her, not seeming to notice or care that she would have been content to let it slam shut and sever his vines if he had been too slow.

The path began to slope upwards. Up ahead the outlines of the castle sat atop the hill like an old jagged crown. It may have been a trick, or magic, or just old childhood views contaminating her mind, but up near the top of the castle she thought there may have been a small ray of real sunlight where the structure came close to the barrier. The hill connected with a massive dip in the ceiling after all, causing a small part of the castle to look like it was etched out of the side of the mountain itself. She knew that this high up the barrier was close by and it wasn’t impossible for sunlight to have found a crack to peek in through over the years. So maybe it wasn’t that outlandish of a thought after all.

As Asriel continued to chatter on, one word stuck out amidst his droning and prodded at her. “Reset? You have that ability too?” She kept her eyes trained straight ahead but there was a dangerous edge in her voice now.

“I did for a while, yes. Until you came along. You seem to have overwritten my last save point.”

“Save Point? Is that what you call them?” She mused. “Well, I suppose that is an appropriate word for them. When the world becomes your game, why not call them Save Points?”

“Hah. Yeah, I guess so." He ducked his head sheepishly as he continued. "You may not believe this… but the first time I found out about resetting things... it happened because… because I had given up. I thought I wanted things to end. But as I felt myself begin to die I realized I wasn’t ready yet. I started to wonder what would happen to me, a soulless creature, if I were to…?” He shook himself from the thought. “Anyway, that stubbornness brought me back.” Chara’s face twitched a little at his continuation of a question that had now been answered. He did not notice her annoyance. “Interested, I decided to experiment. Again and again I brought myself to the edge of death. At any point I could have just let this world continue on without me, but as long as I was Determined to live, I could pull myself back. It’s amazing isn’t it, Chara?”

“Of course. It surprised me too at first." She shrugged. "I guess human Determination does odd things if you soak it in magic long enough. So, tell me Ariel, how long did it take you?”

“How long did it take me to what?”

She spread her arms wide. “To be like me of course! When I left you, you were still so soft. So small. **So** **weak**. When did that finally change? When did you first decide to _kill_?”

He laughed nervously, not comfortable under her gaze. She had let a little bit of her old anger seep into her expression. It may have been as old as a lifetime to the rest of the world but to Chara the wounds of past slights were still fresh, hot and burning.

 “Well at first, out of habit, I used my powers for good. I solved everyone’s problems flawlessly. Their companionship was amusing to me for a while. I’m surprised you didn’t try it out for yourself.”

“I had better things to do.”

“Oh. Well, good. It was a waste of time in the end anyway. They just become predictable over time, trapped down here. ‘What do they say if I give them this? What would they do if I said this?’ I ran through it all and once you know the answer, that’s it. That’s all they are.

“The killings started because I ran out of other things to do. I became curious about how they would react if one of them died.” His face carried a worried scowl that mocked itself. “At first I made excuses for myself. ‘I don’t like this.’ I would say, ‘but I just _have_ to know what happens.’” He cackled; face becoming sharper and more grotesque than ever. His vines writhed behind him. “What a pitiful excuse! You of all people must know how liberating it is to act this way.”

Chara chuckled and prodded at Rain to see if she was still listening from her little cubbyhole.

“Of course nowadays even that has grown tiring. I have done everything this world has to offer. I’ve read every book, burned every book, won every game, lost every game. I thought I had seen it all by now. But you? I never could have predicted _you_ , Chara.”

For a creature who claimed to have had the ability to love or feel compassion ripped out of him he sure was beaming up at her now.  “I mean, when I first saw you in the Ruins I didn’t recognized you. I thought I could frighten the human and take her soul. I didn’t know you were already in there. And when I failed and tried to reload so I could try it all over again, my save wouldn’t work. Chara, somehow your Determination is even greater than mine! So I know that when you go in there,” he nodded towards the castle, “you will be able to do all the things I could never do.”

Chara paused in their assent. The noble golden archways of the court hall were drawing near, looming over them like giants. “And this doesn’t bother you at all? Knowing that I am the one in control? Knowing that the world is now at my mercy?”

Asriel wilted a bit. He cast a longing glance up at the light above them; that light that they liked to pretend could be the sun. “I’m just…so tired of all this, Chara. I’m tired of all these people. All these places. I’m tired of being a flower. There is just one thing left I want to do.” His face contorted into another monstrous sneer that opened so wide that it actually tore at the seams of his blossom head. “I want to finish what we started. Let’s free everyone! Let’s let them see what humanity is really like! Let’s let them see that despite everything, this world is still **kill or be killed**!”

The heat was boiling up inside her now. Poor Asriel. Despite his gaudy talk and scary faces he was still the same as always; naive and oblivious. “And what do you want to do after that?”

“Then? Well… I had been entertaining a few ways to use that power.” His face shrank back into its friendly form, eyes shy and evasive.

Chara’s grip tightened on her spear and the feeling of the knife pressed against her thigh became hard to ignore. _Answer very carefully._ She warned. _Say the right words, little brother._

“But, well, seeing you again has changed my mind.” He beamed up at her, hopeful. “Chara, I think if you’re around, just living on the surface with you wouldn’t seem so bad.”

Chara smiled and suppressed a sigh. “Now why would you go and tell me a thing like that?”

Asriel misinterpreted her disappointment for a genuine question. He seemed a little confused.  “Chara I said it before. Even after all this time you are still the only one who understands me.” He stood a little taller to try and make himself seem more intimidating.  His words came out in spitting hisses like an agitated snake. “You won’t give me any worthless pity! Creatures like us wouldn’t hesitate to kill each other if we got in each others way!”

She folded her arms, resting all her weight on one leg and looking at him expectantly; waiting for him to catch on. “That’s right.”

Asriel was cackling now, enveloped in his act. “There really is a purity to living this way! Like I said before, it’s so liberating to just stop making excuses and accept that this is what we _are_. Who cares if we are messed up? At least we are better than the sickos who stand around and watch it happen!” Chara prodded Rain again in amusement, but Asriel seemed to have someone else in mind. He had lowered himself back down to the floor and was staring out past the golden arches of the hall again. “I bet there are people standing around just watching this all happen right now, aren’t there?” He called out in a penetrating voice.

Chara scowled at him. Perhaps he had gone a little loopy with all of his whimsical resets.

“So anyway, that’s why I-” He had pulled his gaze away from the arches and had turned to look at her again. The words got stuck to his throat and his gleeful expression began to fade. His stem lowered itself to the ground a little more. He reminded her of a dog rolling over in submission. His laugh was nervous and brittle. “Hahaha…hah. Suddenly I feel sort of…funny. W-why am I shaking?”

“I think we both know.” The fire iron slipped out of her sleeve a little in preparation.

His little black eyes darted over to her arm and locked in on to the small movement. “H-hey Chara, no hard feelings about back then, right? I was still just a dumb kid. I’m stronger than that now. I’m not afraid of hurting people.”

Chara took an abrupt step forward, making sure that her boots hit against the pavement with a snap.

Asriel jerked back, petals quivering, eyes going wide with fear. His coils of vines began to writhe around him and drag him back towards the nearest crack in the road.  “Hey! What are you doing? Back off!” He looked around as if expecting someone to come in and help him. His eyes were darting around like two wild birds trapped in a cage. “Chara I-I have changed my mind about all this. This isn’t a good idea. You should go back.” His laugh was a weak, quavering thing that tried and failed to dismiss Chara’s advancing footsteps and growing grin. “This place is fine just the way it is.” His vines were pulling him back into a nearby crack at maximum speed. His face twisted back into that form with the jagged mouth and spat at her. “Stop making that face! This isn’t funny! You have a sick sense of humor!”

“Oh, but I’m not joking at all!” She lunged at him, pulling the knife from her pocket and striking down upon his coils. Her knife bit deep into the retreating vines, severing them from the main body. He shrieked and the loosened vines squirmed around her before crumbling away into nothing. Amidst the tangle of chaos he still managed to pull himself away on his main stem.

 “I wasn’t laughing when you let them kill me- _again_! After all I had done for you! After having already died for you once!” She tried to spear him but his stupid golden head bobbed out of the way at the last second and she only struck stone. She watched the stone press his petals up against his face as he sank deeper and deeper into the crack.

“I did not. **Die**. L _aughing_!” She screamed, watching in frustration as those beady black eyes slipped into the darkness and escaped. She slashed at the surrounding vines that continued to trail behind him, but it was no use. His vines were like hair. They could be cut and regrown. He had managed to slip out of reach.

Her heart was racing, her arms shaking. Her breathing was ragged and uneven. She had wasted too much time letting him amuse himself with his little speech. She had let her control slip too soon. He had gotten away. She glared down into that crack. It was shaped like a mocking smile.

She threw her knife at the crack and screamed. She had made herself remember. Why had she done that?

She hated yellow flowers.

Rain’s presence flinched against her rage. She rose to the surface in hesitant little steps, drawn in on herself. She hovered their like a shadow cast over Chara’s shoulder. She eventually reached out to her. _“Chara…”_ She tried to say something. Despite everything Chara had done to her, despite everything she had made her do, she was still trying to find the words to comfort her and salvage things. _“Let’s stop this. Let’s let these things go. You can stay here in this body with me. We can share. No more dying. No more hurting others or being hurt._ ”  Her voice quavered. _“Let’s just… stop.”_

Chara shoved her away, vicious and snarling. “Shut up!” She spat, whirling around as if Rain was actually there behind her. “Just shut up you weak, pathetic excuse for a human! This is your fault. These are your emotions! They are _tainting_ me!” She pulled herself up to her feet and collected her weapons. _“_ I have to make you see. I am going to make you either understand and agree, or give up. This is not your body anymore. Your body, your soul, your life- _none_ of them belongs to you anymore! They are **mine**! You have already lost so **quit trying to save me**.” She closed her eyes and took a moment to try and calm herself. This wouldn’t do. She wanted to be cool and composed when she met Asgore again.

She took a deep breath and headed for the golden pillars.

“I don’t need help, Rain. I don’t want redemption. Do you understand? _I don’t want it_. All I want right now is for you to learn and understand what my brother was too stupid to fully grasp despite all his parroting: that in this world it will always, **_always_ ** be kill, or **be killed**.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Chara goes for a calming little walk-  
>  and quickly loses her cool under the crushing memory of her past. :D


	18. Judgment hall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Judgment hall**
> 
>  
> 
> I checked my watch to see what time it was but all it said was “Bad” 
> 
>  
> 
> Whoops I forgot to update last Sunday. Sorry. :x was not feeling good and it sort of slipped my mind.  
> Anyway, here we go! I apologize in advance for the length of this fight but, well, Sans has some issues he needs to vent. (obviously the next two chapters will be bloody.)

One could have easily reasoned that it was just the wind. Or perhaps it was the sound of his own soft footsteps sliding across the floor, echoing against the world left abandoned by everyone but himself.  One could say it was just his imagination when the strange garbled sound reached him like a sigh; passing before most people would have ever been able to understand that they had heard something odd.

But Sans was nothing if not observant. And with Alphys no longer able to relay information to him and half of technology now on the fritz anyway, he had had to turn to less traditional methods of gathering information.

He used to try to ignore the sound and tell himself he was just hearing things. But sometimes he had moments where he couldn’t quite convince himself of that. Lately with the rest of his world becoming dust on the wind, he had become a very good listener.

The noise, the whisper, the sigh... it spoke of death.

 “so, that’s it then.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “there is nothing left.” He buried his chin a little deeper into the orange scarf wrapped around his neck.

It still had his smell on it. It smelled nice, comforting even- if he could ignore the faint smell of the dust.

It had the smell of poorly cooked spaghetti, overly expensive MTT products and his brother’s favorite brand of fabric softener on it. They were the smells of home, before it had become empty. Before it had become just another dim house on an abandoned street.

Within his coat pockets his hands turned to fists that clenched so hard that they shook, bones creaking against each other.  It was hard to keep his voice even when he called out to the nothingness; to the name the rest of time had forgotten. “if there is any chance, any indication worth a damn, any reason at all to believe that there is still a chance that this isn’t what we have been predicting right from the start-  give me a sign.”

He listened and he waited. He would have taken anything. A sigh, a whisper, a shadow moving out of the corner of his eye- any sign at all that this wasn’t the one they had been trying to avoid. That this wasn’t going to be the permanent ending.

All he needed to rest easy was that one little whisper. That one little sigh. That one little passing shadow that promised him that if he just closed his eyes and let it pass, the nightmare would end and everyone would wake up none the wiser.

…But nothing happened. The world was quiet. He was alone after all.

He felt like he had just taken a blind step off of a cliff and was now plummeting into a bottomless darkness. 

So this was it. This _was_ the end. If he wanted things to change, this time he would have to be more than just the wall flower.  If he wanted his brother back he was going to have to do everything himself.

He closed his eyes. “alright then.” A growing shadow touched his existence. He felt the deep cold of nothingness as he pulled himself through a tear in the shadows, stepped across the void and heading for a pinpoint of light in his mind.  “i guess it’s my turn.”

He could feel a powerful sensation collecting in his chest. It ran up his neck and into his skull. Or was it the other way around? Hell if he knew. He just knew that it did strange things to his vision and made him feel funny.

He liked to imagine that this was sort of what drowning felt like. It was scary. You wanted to fight it. But once you accepted it, it became rather pleasant.

A deep, cold anger was growing inside of him. It was not a foreign feeling but it was one he had avoided for quite some time. Letting it consume him was like stretching limbs that had not moved in a long, long time. He had forgotten their strength.

He fell through that pinprick of light, watching it grow wider faster than he could understand, sucking him through it like a vacuum and spitting him out of the darkness and onto solid ground on the other end of the portal.

 He braced himself and stepped out into the light of the golden hall.

***

The hall was  just as she had left it. How long had she been dead now anyway? The dreamless darkness had felt like the blink of an eye to her but the world had rushed forward with no consideration for her slumber. Things felt older and more faded now and she couldn’t decide if that was because she was seeing things in their true light now, or if things had just been deteriorating in her absence.

Ah, well, it wouldn’t matter soon anyway.

She danced along, that sinister carefree smirk plastered to her face and her messy, dusty white hair dancing in time to her odd movements. She let the air catch her cloak so that it billowed out behind her. With no one left to talk to for the rest of her journey she  decided to let Rain out of her cage a bit so she had someone to prod at. "Isn’t this nice? Don’t you just love the silence?” She shouted, enjoying the sound of her voice echoing against the walls. “No one left now. Its just the two of us and father. But soon he will be gone too; put to sleep with all the others so he can rest. No more hurt, no more pain, no more suffering. Just the black dream, filled with everyone in the Underground so they can keep each other company... They are finally going to be **_free_**.”

Rain was fighting against her for control of her body. Watching her struggle  was like watching a fish flop around in the dirt. Even now Rain's weak little ethereal fingers grasped and pried at her for some sort of hold, desperate for any kind of control she could snag. Even after all this time she was trying to get Chara to turn around.

“What’s a matter? Don’t you like it? This is what you wanted too, isn’t it? After I take Asgore’s soul we will get rid of _everyone_. No one will ever be able to hurt us again.” She could feel Rain’s disgust crashing against her in angry waves. Good. Anger like that helped keep her warm. 

She clicked her tongue in a chiding way. “You are wondering how I could be so messed up that I would want to kill my own family, aren’t you? Well, to be honest, practice helps.” She smirked against Rain's jolt of shock. “Hm, what? You’re not surprised that I killed my real parents, are you?" her lips twisted into a bitter sneer. "They were quite horrible. Worse than yours. I did the world a favor.” She reached out and touched one of the large golden pillars that towered above her in order to distract herself from the memory. She had always liked this room. The windows were pretty and the walls on the far right had lots of nice murals painted on them. The colors were faded and distorted by the golden light spilling in from outside but they still maintained their dramatic flair. 

War, death and triumph, all of it was depicted along the walls.

She tore herself away from the murals and continued her speech. “Besides, it’s not like the thought never crossed your mind to do the same to your parents, right? When they fought, when they screamed, when they threw things at you. I can see your memories. There is no need to lie.

"I can see all of your favorite hiding places for when your mom was drunk and wanted to burn you with her cigarettes. You can’t tell me you didn’t wish she was dead when she finally caught you. Just like you can’t tell me you were never angry with your dad when you heard him talk about what a horrible accident you were.”

Chara looked down as a little beetle skittered across the floor in front of her, black antenna waving in the air. “Didn’t you ever want to just _snuff them out_?” She stepped on it with the heel of her boot and gave her foot a vicious twist.

_“Hating someone doesn’t make it ok to murder everyone and everything they were ever associated with! These monsters were kind! They loved you! They trusted you! The sins of your parents did not carry over to them!”_

“Hypocrite.” Chara laughed. “You let me kill people because you thought they may have had a hand in your friend’s death. You wanted them to _suffer_ , remember?. So perhaps you shouldn’t judge me. Besides, they _used_ me.” She snarled, rounding on Rain’s presence. “Every monster in the Underground did! They never stopped reminding me that I was their salvation. That I, a child who had just ran away from a blood soaked home, was now supposed to lead an entire _species_ to salvation! They didn’t love me for me. They loved me for what they wanted me to do. They didn’t take me in for my sake; they took me in for _theirs_!”

She closed her eyes and shrugged, trying to calm herself and pretending like she couldn’t care less. “Well, I did it. I killed myself. I did the thing none of them were brave enough to ask me to do but kept nudging me towards. I did it for them because I loved them.” Her voice cracked on that last word in a wave of sadness and disgust. “And after all that, after giving up my own body for them… my own brother couldn’t even follow through with his part of the plan. So I died. Again. Slow and painful. Because they are all just selfish cowards in the end.”

_“Chara please… don’t go down this path.”_

She took a moment to compose herself. “We have already ‘gone down' this path, Rain. We are at the end of the road. It’s just like Asriel said. People like us, well, we don’t want pity. We don’t want to be saved anymore. We don’t deserve it. We just want it all to end so we can get some peace and quiet.” She shrugged, hair bobbing with the motion. “But we also don’t want to just lay down and die. Just like you, for some reason we still run from death. Funny, is it not? We are the world’s sickest joke.

“But now I am here to fix all that. So… be happy. You should be smiling. Today is your lucky day. You are about to get everything you wanted when you climbed this mountain. You will have nothing left to run from after this. All the bad people in your life will be gone and the monsters who killed your friend will be brought to justice. We are going to be free. Free from them and free from this place.”

Chara continued down the hall, pushing away Rain’s attempts at a rebuttal and locking her away in their mind once more.  The hallway was long, empty and blessedly quiet.

Rain noticed him first and her guilty recondition tipped Chara off half a heartbeat later. Someone that had not been there two steps ago now strolled out of the long shadow of the pillar he had been leaning up against father down the hallway.

Chara tilted her head. “What’s this?”

_“No. No! No! No! Sans, what are you doing here? Run!”_

 “heya.” Sans stepped forward, the same smile from their meeting in Snowdin still plastered on his face. He kept his hands tucked in his pockets while he moved towards her like she was nothing more than a friend who had come to visit him in his own home. His chin was hidden away all nice and snug against an orange scarf. “you have been busy, huh?”

“I have.” Chara scowled, twirling her spear in one hand.

He nodded knowingly, still smiling. “so, you made it this far. so now i got a question for ya.” With his hands still tucked away inside his pockets he lifted his arms a bit then let them drop back down in a lazy, nonchalant gesture. He looked through one of the stained glass windows, seeming to pay little attention to Chara’s creeping movements. “do you think even the worst person can change? that everyone can be a good person if they just try?” He tilted his head and looked at her, the little pinpricks of light twinkling within his sockets.

Chara took another step forward.

Sans looked back up at the stained glass and laughed. It was a soft chuckle that for some reason did not line up with his changing expressing. “alright. well here is a better question.” His gaze snapped back over to them, the pricks of light now gone; leaving nothing but the blackness in his sockets to stair back out at them. His lazy smile had turned into a hungry grin. “do you wanna have a bad time? cause lady, if you take another step forward… you’re _really_ not gonna like what happens next.”

Chara grimaced. Great. Another flashy show bot standing in her way. “Really? Is this some sort of joke? You are threatening me? Now? Wow, I thought you were more observant than this. You should be off hiding with the rest of the worthless dust bunnies where you would have been safe.”

He took in a deep breath in through the nose. “but i wouldn’t be safe, would i? not really. not from you.”

She rolled her eyes and snerked. “Fair point. Alright. Let’s get this over with.” She took a single step forward and twirled her spear in one hand and drew out her knife with the other.

“you sure?”

“I got a goat to kill.”

Sans shrugged. “welp! sorry old lady, this is why i never make promises.”

“Um, ok. Whatever.” She shook her head, bloodshot eyes narrowed in a hungry grin. “I’m going to enjoy this. You were one of her favorites.”

He brought a finger up to his mouth. “shh.”

She balked at him. “Excuse me?”

“hang on. just taking it all in, ya know? even after all this... all this chaos, all this hell… it’s still a beautiful day outside. people never think the end will come on a day like this but sometimes… that’s just how things go. the birds are singing, flowers are blooming…” one eye had gone black again and the other began to glow with an eerie light. “on days like these, people like you…”

Chara charged forward, spear lowered.

“Should be _burning in hell_!” His grin became savage. The light in his left eye leapt to life. His left hand came out of his pocket and in the blink of an eye the ground erupted in a spray of rubble. Several rows of jagged bones jolted out of the floor in an uneven pattern that converged on Chara’s advancing position faster than she had time to react.

San’s moving hand came crashing down and in that moment Chara and Rain’s soul was yanked out into view and doused in blue so fast that it felt like something was physically being ripped out of them. When his hand continued downwards towards the floor they found themselves falling with it, feeling a crushing weight pushing them towards the marbled stone as the rows of bones advanced on them at an angle meant to skewer.

“What the f-” She didn’t have time to finish. She barely had time to twist out of the way of the barricade. She fell between the jagged gaps but he still managed to lance her through the back of one of her legs as she fell.

She cried out in pain and surprise, dropping to one knee just as a tall cross section of needle sharp-bone snapped out of the ground and collided with one another right were her head should have been, forming an 'X'.

She pushed herself to her feet, keeping her weight off of her now useless right leg. It was already gushing enough blood to make her boot squishy. “How the hell are you so-”

The fire in his single burning eye flashed yellow, casting shadows against his clenched teeth and etching deep grooves under his eye sockets.

With each flash of yellow the air around him shimmered and something began to move within the long shadows of the pillars. The distortions coalesced into monstrous skulls with steak knives for teeth.

Chara only had enough time to look up in disbelief at the floating monstrosities that could be described as both canine and draconic before the skulls unhinged their massive jaws and a brilliant blue light gathered in their hungry maw, setting their eyes aglow.

She braced herself for the blue attack, every joint locking up in preparation for it to pass over her.

With a hum that became an electric howl the air ignited with heat and magic. From several different angles the beams hit her dead center. Her mind only had enough time to accumulate a reaction of shock before it was over.

Her skin, her hair, her flesh and bone- it was all burned away before she was capable of registering any more than the faint peeling sensation of her body turning to ash, leaving nothing but a charred shadow on the stone.

Her sentience was blown away into the darkness.

Wrong kind of blue.

***

They tumbled through the darkness, head over heels. Chara was cackling like a madwoman as their awareness seemingly spun on and on forever, as if it was still reeling from the force of the attack that had landed them here.

_“Oh! He’s feisty! I like that! It’s been too long since we had a proper challenge! After Undyne I didn’t think the Underground had anyone left worth a damn! I mean, it was really stupid of us not to kill him when we had the chance- but wow!”_

 Rain’s reaction to this revelation was much different. _“Fuck! If he was always this strong then why didn’t he try to stop us sooner?”_ Rain was racing her down the dark tunnel now. She was trying to reach that distant pinprick of light in the distance before Chara did in some feeble hope that if she got there first she could regain control of her body for a while.

_“Who knows! Laziness, underestimation, hesitation? I will be sure to ask him some time- if he lasts long enough.”_

She could feel Rain's excitement and she loved it. Sans had given the fool a glimmer of hope.

Good. It would make it all the more funny when she killed him.

Chara reached out for her save point. Seeing the archways of her father’s court had renewed her Determination to the point that she could call herself back to the entrance of the royal hall. Perfect.

Chara dove head first into the light. For a brief moment she tumbled and twisted in the void as if caught in a vortex then all at once she landed upright on her own two feet without any force or momentum whatsoever. Her body was alive again.

The disorienting feeling of spinning around at a hundred miles an hour then suddenly standing still with no medium between the two states was enough to make her stagger a bit and shake her head in confusion. She had hardly twitched a mussel before she felt Rain’s presence rising up inside of her; fighting for control. Sans’s last stand certainly seemed to have stirred up what little resilience she had left in her.

Chara didn’t waste any time and ran into the hall. He had gotten the jump on her but now she would know better.

Her eyes darted around the room, weapons drawn. No one was there.

And then, between one blink and the next, he was standing in the shadow of a pillar again.

“There you are.”

He pushed himself away from the pillar, hands in his pockets and that knowing smile on his face. “heya.” He droned. “you have been-“ he stopped and frowned. “hm. you look upset  about something.” His eyes turned black again, the perfect accent to his sardonic grin. “guess that means I’m pretty good at my job, huh?”

“I admit, I’m impressed!” She lifted her head so that she was looking down her nose at him. Her own features remained wolfish. “I was kind of disappointed with the last monster that bothered to make a final stand against me. But you, you’re going to be _so much fun_.”

“heh.” He was looking out the window again. “well then, give me a moment, will ya? it’s a beautiful day outside. birds are singing, flowers are blooming…”

Chara sprung forward, body leaning forward with the momentum of her sprint.

“on days like these… people like you….” His eye ignited with that blue glow again. She was running at him full speed but she already knew she wasn’t going to make it in time to have an opening strike. “Should be _burning in hell_!”

 Once again his left eye ignited with the cold blue glare of a killer. His hand flicked up then came crashing down. She felt their souls being ripped out of hiding and yanked up to the surface, where the icy blue of an impossible weight caused her sprint to falter into a stagger.

Once again waves of bones came shooting out of the ground with enough force to send tremors up her shins. only this time she knew enough to understand what was coming. She threw her weight forward in an unflattering leap, kicking off the ground with one foot and sending herself spinning sideways and up over the rising arc of bones, legs just barely passing in-between the gaps.

She hit the ground on all fours, two rows of jagged bones crisscrossing overhead with a hollow rattle.

The fire in his single burning eye flashed yellow, casting deep shadows against his clenched teeth and etching something sinister under his eye sockets.

“Here we go.” Chara hissed, pushing herself back up to her feet.

The air shimmered once, twice, four times; two distortions appearing on each side of him. The shimmers became shadows and then the shadows became something more solid, the blackness slipping off like oil to reveal a row of grinning skulls. Their mouths unhinged as if to laugh and blue vapor leaked out of their eye sockets in thick glowing wisps as energy collected in their maw. The light shot forth with an electric howl.

She barely managed to doge it. She sent herself skidding across the floor, getting up just in time to throw herself out of the way as the second barrage converged on her position. A third blast split the ground behind her and threw her through the air in an ungraceful arc. She hit the ground hard, a spike of pain running up her shoulder as she landed poorly and rolled across the floor. When she looked back up again the skulls were shimmering out of existence.

“Is that all you’ve got?” She spat, taking this sudden break in the barrage to get back to her feet.

“huh.” He shrugged, looking at her sideways with the piercing, unblinking gaze of his single glowing eye. He had the look of a mad man enjoying his job. She was coming after him again but he didn’t seem to care. “i always wondered why people never used their strongest attacks first... oh well.” 

Her spear caught the warm afternoon light on its sharpened edge as she drew her weapon back for a strike. She swiped at him, hair flying like a banner behind her as the sharp whistle of steel cut through the air.

He sidestepped her, hands in his pockets, eyes going black.  He seemed amused by the surprise on her face as the ground underneath her buckled and a set of blunt bones shot out of the ground and knocked her out of his way. “what? do you think i’m just going to stand here and take it?”

She spun back around and struck at him with another vicious swipe but once again she only met air. He wasn’t even _there_ anymore. She turned around, searching wildly for where he had gone, expecting him to jump out and hit her at any given moment.

Her eyes narrowed. He was all the way across the hall, standing with his back against another pillar.

“ever double-dutch?” He asked.

Both ends of the hall erupted in turmoil, jagged bones rising out of the floor and flying towards her in tight barricaded rows with an escort of stabbing bones floating a few feet above the main columns. The two attacks synced themselves up with one another so that the only way to avoid them would be to leap over the bones as they converged.

She jumped, the first two barricades passing by each other to make an X as they slipped under her and streaked past, their counterparts in the air doing the same mere inches above her head. Her feet had barely hit the ground before the next row was upon her and she had to jump again. Over and over she jumped, trying to keep in rhythm but each time her feet hit the ground she ended up with a little more of a delay that made the window for error grow smaller and smaller.

On the fifth jump she went too high in her panic and one of the barbed bones flying overhead caught on her hair and yanked her sideways, causing her boots to get snagged by the passing barbs below. She landed on her side, her boots flying off and her long ponytail snagging on one of the columns. She was dragged along by the hair for several feet, only managing to break free when a bone moving in the opposite direction slammed into her.

She screamed in pain and frustration as she tried to right herself, blood smearing across the broken stones.  New waves of magic kept hitting her over and over again just before she could right herself; brittle bones slamming in to her and fracturing into jagged lances as they pummeled her.

The rhythm was lost.

The barricades sank back into the ground. She didn’t even have time to notice that they were gone before two narrow spines shot out of the floor on either side of her at a diagonal angle and skewered her in place.

She gasped, mouth hanging open in shock. Inside of her Rain recoiled in agony. Dark red lines of blood dripped down the grooves of the bloodied bone tips protruding through her back.

The world was going dark again.

Sans stalked up to her, hands still tucked away in his pockets like this was nothing more than an afternoon stroll to him. Chara glared at him through her bangs, breathing wet and heavy as her lungs began to fill with blood.

He looked down at her like she was some sort of curious puzzle to toy with. He kept himself a few paces out of reach, either out of caution or out of a desire not to stain his shoes. “wow, so you _can_ bleed. congratulations.” Either his eyes had gone all black again or she was losing her vision. Her head slumped, her body going limp as she embraced the darkness, his last words trailing behind her like an afterthought.

“didn’t think you had it in you. you know, since you're heartless.

***

“hm, that expression.” He tilted his head and rubbed his chin in sarcastic thought. “that’s the expression of someone who has already died twice in a row.” He winked at her, left eye already beginning to glow. “suffice to say, you look unsatisfied. so, how about we go ahead and make it a third?” He scowled to himself. “what comes after thrice anyway?” His right eye was going black. “…want to help me find out?”

Chara was already seething, her knuckles white from gripping her weapons.

He was looking out of that accursed window again. “It’s a beautiful day outside…”

“Oh for god’s sake am I going to have to listen to this every time I-”

His head snapped back around to meet her, looking down his nasal ridge at her with his Cheshire grin and that single wild eye.

The ground erupted around her. She found herself careening forward in surprise, cursing the whole way down. She tried to recover, biting back a scream of pain as several bones ripped through her mid-section. There was hardly enough time for her to come to terms with what had happened before the skulls were there, laughing maws wide and their blue eyes smoldering.

“You little shit!” She yowled.

“yup!”

For a brief moment the world around her was incredibly bright and then all at once it was black again. She could just make out Sans chirping the words “anyways, as i was saying, it’s a nice day out. why not relax and take a load off?” Before she died.

***

This time she decided to try something different. As soon as she reloaded she ran into the room and took an immediate left, ducking behind the pillars and creeping along on her tiptoes so her boots wouldn’t make much sound. By the time Sans appeared and stepped out of the shadows she was already closing in on him. 

Rain became strangely quiet. Chara could feel her presence bunching up inside of her like a cat waiting for just the right moment to leap.

 _“Don’t even think about it.”_ She warned, detaching from the wall and creeping up on him. She could see a scrap of blue from San’s coat peeking out from the other side of the pillar. _“If you try anything funny and mess this up, I will put you up front again so you can feel every sensation of your death in perfect clarity. Understand? I don’t care if it messes up my run when I do it- I **will** put you up front and you **will** feel it.”_

Rain faded back like the whimpering dog she was.

 _“Good girl.”_ She hefted her spear in hand and counted to three. _One…two…_

Rain dove at her, her little wispy spirit launching itself at her hijacked body with her eyes screwed shut against the understood consequences. She didn’t have enough power to do much. She just opened their mouth and took in a sharp gasp of air as Chara swung.

Her spear clanked up against the pillar, finding no purchase.

“heh. nice try.” Rain’s little gasp had been more than enough of a warning for him. He was standing several feet away in the shadow of a different pillar now.

Chara had just enough time to lock eyes with him before her soul was yanked to the surface and the weight of the world was cast down upon her shoulders.

Oh well. At least she got to skip the dialogue this time.

By now she had his opener down quite well and now that she was behind the pillars she was able to use them as a means to shield herself from the hungry maws of those strange skulls he kept summoning.

He paused after the initial barrage. “hey, uh, i actually really like those windows. so could you, you know, get back to the middle of the room so i don’t have to break them when i kill you?”

“Fuck you, Sans!”

“i’m flattered. truly, i am. but given the circumstances i will have to politely decline your invitation. put a pin in that one, will ya?”

“You smug son of a-” once again he had lured her into talking when she should have been moving. Several rows of sharpened bones as long as her forearm materialized overhead in a wide, neat ring around her pillar. She rolled out of the way as all hell broke loose. She was driven out into the open, where Sans stood waiting. She could have sworn that over the resets San’s grin had become more and more hungry; his eye burning with something close to a cruel sort of madness as his grief and hatred chewed away at him from the inside.

“ah. there you are. hello again.” He hummed.

Chara glared at him, pacing back and forth, knowing the moment she took a step forward they would be right back to business as usual. “Watch it Sans. I’m getting tired of your shit and we both know that I’m just going to get better at this over time. You may want to think about turning around while you have a chance. Your big brother isn’t here to look out for you anymore.”

The glow in his eye winked out. His eyeless sockets glared back at her while his hand reached up to his orange scarf. He rubbed the fabric between his fingers. “heh. actually, i’m the big brother. it was my job to protect _him_.” His eye reignited with a flame so furious its ethereal light licked at the sides of his skull. “And now, it’s my job to make you pay!” 

The world around them erupted into chaos, bones tearing up from the floor in a hail of debris.

Chara was dancing forward again. She had been able to gain an extra step in his direction this time while he had been talking.

She was getting the rhythm down pretty well now. Duck, duck, jump, jump, doge, sidestep, jump-

“Really?” She barked, leaping over a particularly nasty barbed fence and ducking as a lance shot by overhead. He was almost within striking distance now. “That’s funny. You don’t strike me as the big brother type.” She ducked under a low flying bone. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the shadows simmering again. He would be summoning another wave of skulls soon. She would be cutting it kind of close. “You look more like an only child to me!”

His eye flashed yellow, the light made his teeth seem all the sharper now; like he was snarling at her. Maybe he was.  He chuckled, shoulders shaking. “You'll pay for that.”

There! He was in range!

Her attack passed right through where he had been. Once again he had moved at the last second, seeming to flicker and slide past her faster than her eyes could keep up. All she knew was that one moment he was in front of her and the next he was behind her.

She looked up from her failed attack only to realize that he had been waiting for this. Behind the position he had once held, a single shard of bone had been waiting behind him and now that he was clear of its path, it shot out at her like it had a mind of its own.

There was no way to avoid it. Making good on her previous threat, she took Rain by the scruff and shoved her awareness up front to dampen the pain. The strike punched right through her side, sending her spinning sideways and staggering off to the side in a spray of blood.

Rain writhed with pain and tried to mentally claw past Chara and escape but she was the weaker of the two souls now, thus her actions found no purchase.

 _“If you don’t like it, heal it!”_ Chara spat.

Rain refused, bombarding her with mental images of all their past sins. This last stand was her feeble idea of atonement and she wasn’t going to back down so easily. Turns out she had a bit of spine on her after all.

Without the pain there to stun her, Chara was able to turn her attention to the skulls that had finished materializing.

She dodged the first two, the force of one blast throwing her out of the range of the second. Her eyes darted around wildly in search of Sans as she was tossed through the air.

There! A few yards behind her, standing in the shadow of the other skulls.

She twisted around in midair and reversed directions, feeling the ground underfoot becoming uneven as a trail of spikes chased after her. The next two skulls were about to fire but she was almost upon him again, putting him in the line of fire.

His grin faltered in realization. At the last second his right hand shot out of its pocket and the two skulls spun around in midair at his hasty command, their maws already open in discharge. The twin beams filled the room with their thunderous howl and the crash of shattering glass.

Apparently he didn’t like the windows _that_ much.

At the same time, his left hand reemerged from his pocket, glowing the same shade of blue as their ensnared soul.

She jumped, spear and knife at the ready as she flung herself at him. She swung on the downward decent but when she should have dropped into striking range she instead stopped, her whole body feeling impossibly light. She hung in the air for a moment, eyes wide and arms flailing.

Sans lifted his hand up above his head and her body followed suit, causing her to squawk and flail like an angry bird.

He flung his hand sideways and she went flying- gravity ramming into her like an angry bull and tossing her across the room. She crashed into a mural, smearing blood across its heroic depiction before falling to the ground in a heap. 

“I want my brother back.” Sans spat, lifting his hand again, a motion soon followed by the uncomfortable sensation of having gravity drag them along by the chest.

 “I want my friends back.” 

She was tossed up into the air. She had just enough momentum to twist herself around so she could watch herself collide with the ceiling.  Another row of spikes managed to get her in the arm.

 “And if I have to rip you apart-“ He slammed his hand down toward the ground and Chara followed the motion with a scream. “-for the next half of eternity to make things right-”

The impact sent painful tremors up her shins but she shielded herself with Rain’s presence and put all her willpower into jumping away from the awaiting bone trap that sprung up the second she touched the ground.

“-well then, I won’t mind.” He shrugged and tossed her sideways into another wall.  She avoided the spikes but she was slowing down. They were bleeding out.

Chara began to pool her own efforts towards healing. Lucky for her Sans couldn’t seem to maintain one style of offense without having to let the previous one evaporate back into nothingness, so there were natural breaks in the pattern that she could exploit. There was a rhythm to his song and she would learn it.

He laughed. It was a nervous laugh that bordered on being unhinged. “see, the thing is, i hardly even remember the resets. but judging by that look on your face-” He slammed her back into the ground. She dodged the spines and he let her go. Gravity went back to normal and the next set of bones came rocketing out of the ground in a tight formation.  “-you can remember them pretty well, can’t you? every. single. second of this.“ 

Like the sickle teeth of a huge maw, bones were appearing above her and snapping down upon the marble in an attempt to pin her.

“every injury, every fumble, every broken bone... you will remember it. you will grow tired of it. so, in times like these you gotta ask yourself:  is what you want really worth it?”

She ducked back behind the pillars and for a few precious second he lost sight of her. His attacks spread out wildly in her assumed direction but she managed to roll ahead of them. For one brief heartbeat he had his back turned to her.  She swung out from behind her pillar and threw her spear.

He spun around, hearing her ragged breathing. With one sharp motion he lifted up a wall of bone around himself, knocking the spear aside. Then in the same motion he twitched his hand and a cross section of spines jumped out of the floor and finally caught her outright.

Once again she felt the familiar sensation of being skewered from multiple angles, propping her up at half height like a battered scarecrow.

“Damn….so…..close.” She panted.

He stepped over to her. She could see a few beads of moisture glistening against the crown of his skull. He reached out and flicked her nose. “heh. tag. you’re it.”

Rage burned in her bloodshot eyes for a moment, but then she smiled “Well… that was…a  stupid move.” She rasped. Her body shook with a painful cough that painted her lips red. She glared up at him through her bangs, a nasty wolfish look accenting her bloody teeth. “Don’t you know…. that the whole point of tag…” She blinked and her eyes rolled up into her head. The world was fading again. “Is that you can’t run forever?...eventually….it’s always you turn….to be **_it_**.”

The pain was washed away by the blessed darkness. Her existence sighed, a soft whooshing sound within the void.

She had made progress this time.


	19. It’s raining somewhere/So sing him to sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~It’s raining somewhere~~ / **So sing him to sleep**
> 
> Do skeletons dream of skeletal sheep?

Their fight became lost and garbled by time until no one knew how long they had been stuck butting heads. Amusement eventually melted away into frustration. The novelty of having a challenge had been burned away by one too many encounters with crazy laser skulls. Frustration blossomed into fury as her body count climbed too high for her to bother keeping count of anymore. Yet over the numerous resets even that fury faded away into a stubborn numbness.

The days rotted away in an undefined stillness that no one could follow.

One could tell from the wearied expression on Sans’s face that even though he only seemed to retain scant memories in the form of déjà vu  and gut feelings, he too was beginning to realize just how many times she must have reset by now and it disturbed him.

If time had carried on properly instead of being pulled right back to the start at the end of every rematch, then surely the clocks of the Underground would have run their full cycle more than once by now. Had there been a sun, they would have seen it set many times over in their failings.

But the day remained the same. Time remained the same. Outside the window the birds repeated the same melody over and over again without fail or falter.

They utterly destroyed the Judgment Hall a hundred times over. Pillars were broken, windows shattered and murals scraped away by the etching lines of sharpened bone. The floor was turned to jagged shambles and the entire expanse of the room painted over and over again with a fresh coat of blood that vanished along with all the other traces of the catastrophic battle every time she died and reset.

This was a story of an unstoppable force clashing with an immovable object.

Yet over time Chara still made progress. It was the little things she noticed that kept her going. She had all the time in the world to get it right but it only took one slip-up on Sans’s part to end this fight for good. Eventually he would falter. He couldn’t doge forever.

She had begun to make up a little song to hum to help her remember the rhythm of the attacks. Things didn’t change much throughout the resets as long as she didn’t do anything too out of the ordinary. It was helping quite a bit. She was lasting longer and longer with each frustrating attempt so long as she kept pace with the rhythm.

In other possibly good news, Rain was all but spent. For a while there she really had put up a good fight. It was almost endearing. Quite a valiant effort from the little coward. Her finest moment to be honest.

Too bad no one would ever know how hard she had tried. No one but the two of them would ever remember all the pain she suffered through in order to cause Chara to fumble during critical moments. No one was left to see the quiet desperation that sometime overtook her eyes when she managed to gain little threads of control and sobbed, fingers going raw against the rough stone of the entryway as she tried  to hold her rebellious body back from reentering the hall once more.

It had never occurred to Chara that Rain thought there was some golden finish line she could force them to cross if she just kept fighting back like this. It wasn’t until several deaths into the encounter that in an exhausted whisper Rain had revealed her grand plan: _“Just… Just give up, Chara! I’m not going to let you do this. To hell with the surface! To hell with revenge and closure! There are only so many times you can drag yourself back from the darkness before you run out of lives! If you won’t walk away, then I- I am going to make sure you use up all your resets in this hellhole!”_

It took Chara several seconds to grasp what she was saying. Then she remembered her lie. The one she had told her when fighting Undyne. The one that Rain apparently still believed to be true.

Chara howled with laughter. Off in the distance, Sans gave her an odd look. “Oh my god! Rain, you are so stupid! We are not playing that kind of game. What, did you think that we had extra lives or something? Do I look like I’m wearing a little green elf hat? You idiot. We have never been in danger of running out of Resets. So long as there is Determination in our souls, I can just keep pulling us back. Again and again and again. Even if you try to stop me, I’m strong enough to go on without your help now.”

 _“No. No! You are lying to me. You always lie!”_ She howled. Yet the damage  was done and her morale began to shrivel. She continued to struggle but Chara could feel that she would soon reach the point where she could no longer make herself fight.

Sans was starting to show signs of reaching that point too. As time wore on in its impossible, repetitive stillness and Chara managed to last longer and longer, Sans began to become more talkative. Perhaps he really was trying to use diplomacy but she doubted it was anything more than a cheap stalling tactic.

If she could just get Rain to finally break then she could finish him off. She had the rhythm down to the point where it was practically a song she knew by heart but Rain would always jump in and sing out of sync to mess her up whever she got close to winning.

She needed to break her.

And as time wore on, she realized exactly how she would do that: her ol buddy Sans would do it for her.

Over time Sans had started offering to spare them. He would practically beg them to just put down their weapon and forget all of this. He would give them this pained smile, sweat sliding down the grooves of his cheekbones as he held out a hand in truce from a safe distance.

Chara had absolutely no faith in Sans’s offer. If she had believed for even a second that he wasn’t lying through his teeth she would have accepted the offer and used it to stab him in the back mid hug. But that look in his eye, that grin on his face, that was the look of someone who had thrown away every feeling he had in him aside from the grim, determined hatred required to keep killing.

But Rain was stupid. She was soft and naive and desperate for someone who would acknowledge that she was just the unwilling passenger in her hijacked body. Sans’s offer drove her wild.

Chara could use this.

She spent a few fights setting it up. She made a show of acting tired. Easy enough- she really was sick of this. Even though her body was refreshed and ready to go at the start of every round, her mind was starting to feel heavy.

She made a show of having second thoughts for the next few rounds. Hesitating here and there, dragging her feet whenever she had to go in.

Eventually they reached the point in their unending fight where the swarm of chaotic bones began to dissipate. They watched them fall apart into a curtain of dust and spent magic that twinkled in the yellow light then vanished into nothingness before it ever touched the floor. This was it. Sans had been talking for some time now- although she had not been paying attention to him. Now he would make his offer of mercy. He would call his ceasefire and extend that sweaty hand of his, hoping to lure them into…something.

“that being said, you, uh, really like swinging that thing around, huh?” 

They stared at each other across the distance. He was maybe three yards away, hands in his pockets, brow somehow furrowed. He tucked his chin up against his scarf to try and mask the sound of his breathing.  “listen, i know you didn’t answer me before but… somewhere in there, i can feel it. there’s still a glimmer of a good person inside of you. maybe that person is just some twisted, faded memory now but i know they once wanted to do the right thing. i don’t know what it was that changed you into this but I still remember the person you used to be. i remember you, rain. i thought you wanted to be friends… i know i did.” He laughed at this, perhaps out of a need to hide his sadness. Probably out of a need to hide his labored breathing. “so, c’mon buddy.” He held out his hand. Chara could see it shaking ever so slightly but he did a good job of keeping it steady for the most part. “do you remember me? please, if you're listening… let’s forget all of this, ok? just lay down your weapon and, well,” he closed his eyes and sighed. He really was getting tired. “my job will be a whole lot easier.”

Rain was trying to push her forward, whispering encouragement in her ear. _“Chara we can’t keep doing this. How long has it been? Days? weeks? Let’s just…let’s stop. We don’t have to be like this. We need to let go.”_

Chara took a hesitant step forward then backed away. _“I can’t do it. I can’t. I don’t know how. I just. I can’t.”_ She stuttered.

Rain’s presence gently pressed up against her. She could feel her reaching out towards their hand, gentle and cautious as she tried to open up their fingers and let the fire iron go. _“It’s ok. I will be right here with you. We can do this. We don’t need to be scared anymore. We don’t need to hurt. This isn’t what I wanted. It’s time to let go. You can still choose to stop this. Look at him! He wants to help us!”_

_“I can’t”_

_“It’s time to let go, Chara.”_

_“Can… can you do it for me?”_

Rain’s relief was like a warm wave of bright red crimson against her consciousness. _“I would love to.”_

Chara took a deep breath and let Rain push forward so that she was in control. Chara watched things unfold over their shoulder.

Rain’s eyes opened wide. She drew in a sharp breath of air and let the fire iron clatter to the ground.

Sans looked about as surprised as she was. “…rain?”

She looked at her pale hands, caked in blood and dust. She blinked back tears as she looked up at him, his extended hand still waiting. “Sans?” She took a few cautious steps forward, looking around like she expected Chara to become a solid beast that would tackle her and drag her away at the last second. “Sans, I’m so sorry.” She stammered, taking a few more wobbly steps. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t mean for it to be like this. I made a mistake- we made a mistake. But, she’s letting me have my body back now. She’s ready to stop this.”

Sans’s shoulders sagged in relief. “lady, i have no idea what the hell you are talking about. but… but i’m glad to have you back. i’m glad i finally- i finally got through to you.” He held out his arms, open for an embrace. “c’mere pal.”

 She laughed in relief. She was all but running towards him now. “Oh, Sans! Thank you! Thank you so much!  This has all be so confusing. I was so scared. We promise we won’t ever-“

Just like that his expression went from tender relief right back to violent rage. His eye flashed and the ground between them split open. Long curved bones arced up out of the ground, going right through her like she was made of tissue paper.

She whimpered, falling to her knees as the curving bones burrowed deep inside her chest and pulled her down to the floor as they grew and curled back towards the ground. Her mouth hung open in an attempt to gasp but she couldn’t find a way to breathe. Tears ran down her face as another thin whimper managed to seep out as she was pinned to the ground. “S…an...s?”

He laughed. It was a loud, cruel laugh that made his shoulders shake. He loomed over her with his hands in his pockets, surveying his handy work before crouching down on her level. “sorry. hold on a minute.” He shook his head in disbelief, still chuckling. “wow. sorry, i just need to take this all in. it’s a _rib cage_ , get it? hah!” He got up and made a show of dusting himself off before turning his back to her. “i always wanted to use that pun. but i never thought i would meet someone horrible enough to deserve it.  so, thanks . i guess.  get dunked on. and, uh, don’t come back.”

Her mouth worked to try and say something but nothing came out. Chara could feel Rain’s spirit sinking. That was it. Sans had been her last hope and he had forsaken her.

This time it was Chara that got to whisper in her ear. _“See Rain? He gets it. In this world it’s kill or be killed.”_

The world was fading to black but Chara didn’t mind.

Rain finally understood. There was no redemption left for her to seek out. There was no one left who would believe her if she told the truth.

…There was no one left.

***

Sans watched her approach, leaning lazily against his pillar. He had long since given up on his little introductory speech. Now he just waited patiently for her to get there.

He pushed himself away from the shadow. He gave her an almost friendly look. “ready?”

She nodded.

“alright. here we go.”

***

“our reports showed a massive anomaly in the timespace continuum. timelines jumping left and right, stopping and starting until suddenly, everything ends.” He flickered away, never so much as twitching a leg to dodge her attack. All at once he was just someplace else.

She deflected several bones that were flying through the air, cursing when one shot up out of the floor and struck her in the foot.

She weaved her way out of the next volley, humming some strange tune to herself, mouthing the lyrics as she went.

Sans laughed. It was a cold, hollow sound with no mirth in it. “that’s your fault isn’t it?” He said, teeth dripping with sarcasm.

She stabbed at him again, hoping against hope that one of these days she would have just enough reach to slide the poker between his ribs and snag him.

He actually bothered to physically move this time, leaning back a bit and then pulling his hand out of his pocket with the speed of a striking snake.

By now the familiar sensation of her weight being distorted took over. She went cartwheeling through the air, feeling the familiar snag of an invisible weighted hook catching her in the chest and dragging her along.

Without Rain there to throw her off balance she was able to twist herself around in midair and land on her feet, jumping forward just in time to avoid the awaiting spikes that he summoned to catch her.

Sans switched tactics and tried to reason with her. “look, lady, there are some things in this world- things like this,  things like us- that you just can’t fix. sometimes you just can’t have your way. no matter how badly you wish things would change. i mean, hell, i gave up trying to go back a long time ago.”

Chara cursed under her breath. She had let herself get thrown too far by the last attack. Now he had half the hall to torment her with.

And torment her he did. Little spiny bones started marching towards her in an uneven line, their spacing odd and their angles random. Between each of these annoying lines long shimmering blue shapes broke up the monotony, daring her to move as they passed.

The pattern was demanding. Stop, hold, leap, tumble. Get up, stop, hold, leap, tumble.

One of the skewed bones snagged her shirt and cut a long gash down her back. She had discarded her cloak in hopes of avoiding this at the start of the fight but she must have stepped out of rhythm and allowed her clothes to snag. 

Her skin burned and blistered when the blue attack phased through her while she was in the middle of getting up. She spat in frustration but forced herself to keep going. It was hard to get Rain to heal her anymore. She just had to push through it and hope she didn’t get too light headed. All things considered she was making good progress.

“see the thing is, when you get stuck in a loop like this, it’s hard to find things that still matter to you. getting the last of the seven souls, saving the king, getting to the surface- all that doesn’t really appeal to me anymore. cause even if we do… we’ll just end up right back down here without any memory of it, right?”

His eye was flashing. Several smaller versions of the laughing skulls burst forth from the shadows and began to harass her with a barrage of electric teal. She ducked behind the pillars to shield herself, constantly willing her body to keep moving as she heard the stone begin to crack and crumble behind her.

“i mean, who knows how many times you have done this? not just this fight, but _everything_. i have so many half memories of things that apparently ‘ _never happened_.’ but i guess this is it, huh? you finally got bored and decided to go all out.”

“Hah. I think your confusing me with my hellion of a brother. He loves to half-ass the same mistakes over and over again like that. But me? I just want to get things done.” She spat, words falling on deaf ears as she ran. A barricade was gaining on her but he had managed to make the formation too tight and it had picked up some of the loose stone slabs in its charge. The first few rows cut at her shins but she soon managed to climb up onto one of the uneven moving stones and jump down on the other side of the wave; dogging the rain of shrapnel that came from above as she leapt from her platform, arms swinging high overhead as she came after him. Once again he teleported off to the side and her spear smacked up against the stone where he had once been.

She had almost hit him that time. He was getting slower.

How long had this particular attempt been going on now? She had to be getting close. He would make her run the gauntlet soon.

“to be blunt,” he panted, dogging another swipe and tossing her back into another round of double-dutch, jumping and dogging, “it makes it kind of hard to give it my all- knowing that even if i win it will just put everything back to square one. or is that just a poor excuse for being lazy?” He shrugged and teleported again, causing his scarf to dance. “hell if i know.  all i know is you won’t let me mourn my friends in peace.  you won’t stop. i have seen what happens next if i just let you through and i’ll tell you what- it makes being stuck at square one not sound so bad after all. at least everyone was happy before you came along.”

She saw the last row in the double-dutch coming up. The thing about magical attacks was that summoning them was like breathing. You couldn’t take a second breath while you were still taking your first. Sure, monsters could learn to multitask and create more complicated patterns but there would always be gaps and breathers. Sans’s next gap was coming up.

She took advantage of the clear court. He was sweating bullets and gasping between words. She was getting to him.

“it may sound strange to say it now, but before all this, i was secretly hoping we could be friends.” His eye sparked yellow. The whole room flashed and for a brief moment the air felt cold.

_Flicker_

She blinked and when she opened her eyes again she was several yards away from where she had been a second ago and the tail end of the double-dutch pattern was barreling towards her again.

“Shit.” She took a good hit to the chest. A rib or two may have cracked. It hurt to breathe but she refused to go down.

“y’know, i always thought the anomaly was doing this ‘cause they were unhappy. and i figured that when they got what they wanted, they would finally stop.” He was marching around the perimeter of his attack with his hands in his pockets,  shoulders hunched. His eye was flashing yellow again.

_Flicker._

She was on an unstable piece of stone, dodging shrapnel from above. She jumped off and-

_Flicker._

She was running towards him down the empty hall. In her moment of disorientation two opposing attacks grazed her and sent her careening off to the side.

The rhythm. She had to remember the rhythm! There was a song…

“i mean, you _seemed_ harmless when i met you. what a load of bullshit, right?” He ran a hand over his skull and hid part of his face in his scarf. “god, i felt _bad_ for you! i thought: wow, humans really don’t seem that bad once you get to know em. you just looked so scared and cold back then. so i thought maybe all you needed was, i dunno, some good food, bad laughs, couple of nice friends… and then everything would be ok.”

He laughed, painful and labored. He tossed her around the room again, causing her to screech in frustration when she got her timing wrong and was stabbed for her mistake.

“but that’s ridiculous, right? yeah!” He snarled, teeth appearing long and sharp in the light of his eye. He threw her to the ground with more force than usual before picking her back up again. “you’re the type of person who won’t _ever_ be happy!” He was tossing her around like a rag doll now. “you will just keep consuming timelines over and over again! until…well, hey, take it from me lady, someday you gotta learn when to quit. And That! Day! Is! Today!”

A single skull melted out of the darkness, maw already open. A massive blast of energy shattered the floor and sent her flying. She barely managed to get far enough away from it to keep herself alive.

The room felt oddly still after that. She panted, wiping blood from her lip and staggering back to her feet. She looked at Sans from across the room. He was breathing heavily too. His eyelids- eye sockets? Did it matter?- were drooping.  His voice echoed through the shattered hall. “cause… y’see… all this fighting is really tiring me out.” He laughed nervously, eyes shifting.

Chara began her march.

A lance shot out of the floor at shoulder level.

She sidestep it.

A dagger made of shinbone fell from the ceiling.

She twisted out of the way.

A club swung low at her feet from behind a pillar.

She hopped over it.

She had done this all before.

“-and if you keep pushing me then i will be forced to use my special attack. sound familiar? my brother had one too you know. The brother you **killed**. i won’t be as fair as he was though. i’m warning you- it won’t be pleasant. so, uh, if you don’t want to see it,” he caught her by surprise when he picked her up again, soul shining blue as he tossed her up against a pillar.  “now would be a good time to **_die_**.”

She kicked off of the pillar, refusing the yield.

He sighed. The light in his eye growing brighter and brighter until it was an ethereal flame of blue rage curling several inches above the crown of his head. The glow was echoed by a light in his chest and hands. “alright, well, here it goes. are you ready? survive _this_ and i’ll show you my special attack!”

She could feel an odd tugging sensation in her soul. This was it. She could do this. He was at the end of his rope. He couldn’t keep this up forever. Up next: the gauntlet.

Her feet began to slide out from under her. The room’s gravity began to tilt. All at once the uneven floor felt like it was at a slant and she was sliding downwards, legs sustaining road burn as she began to slide faster and faster down towards Sans at the end of the hall- his maniacal grin fake and labored.

Bones shot out sideways on either side of her, cropping up like the strangling, uneven branches of a bleached forest.

She dug her boots into the ground and took her spear in both hands, jamming it into a passing crack and using its brief moment of purchase to push herself onto a corrected course just in time to avoid the closing rows of boney teeth. She continued to use this method to steer, gritting her teeth against the cuts and scrapes she sustained as she continued to slide across the floor.

The room flickered with every move she made.

_Flicker._

He was manipulating time skips again. Sans was standing just off to the side, encouraging the bones to grow longer. She steered herself off to one side.

_Flicker._

He was in front of her now. She was several yards back from her original location. She had over corrected and was pushed through the serrated edges of his attack on her right side. She scrambled to heal herself, attempting to stop the constant bleeding while the room continued to flicker and Sans continued to jump around.

She finally slammed into the wall at the end of the hall and pushed away, the awaiting spines nipping at her toes just before gravity began to revert back to normal.

She barely had time to get up before a barrage of awaiting skulls were firing at her heels, all the while her soul pulled along by an impossible, ever-changing gravity that caused her to lose track of which way was up and which way was down. She hardly realized she was bouncing around on the ceiling until a particularly nasty energy strike dislodged a chunk of the floor underneath her and it fell away into the chaos down below.

She fell with it.

 Sans was just below her, jaw unhinged in labored panting as he continued to toss her around, no longer aiming to make her clash with anything in particular. He just wanted to keep her from advancing.

After several long seconds of chaos, the fluctuating weight on her chest began to dissipate. His reckless swings became slower and slower, the impacts going from brutal to manageable to downright lazy.

At last she hovered upright just a foot or so off the ground, directly facing him. He was just a few feet away.

He dropped her. She landed gently on her feet.

For a minute they just stood there. Face to face across the distance, mouths hanging open as they both tried to catch their breath.

“Damn…Sans…you’re a tough motherfucker to beat.”

“heh…and your just a motherfucker. “

“Heh.” She recovered first. Her hand twitched with the muscle memory of a spear strike.

She blinked in surprise when she realized she wasn’t holding anything.  She looked off to her left. Her weapon was just a few feet away. She had dropped it. “Oh fuck, come on!”

“ok… alright. time for my…special attack. ready? here goes nothing.”

She pulled the knife from her back pocket and took her chance.

She slammed face first up against an invisible barrier. She felt her nose crunch. She staggered back, already feeling the warm blood running down her face. “Shit! What the hell?”

He laughed sheepishly.  “yeah, that’s right. my special attack is literally nothing.  and it’s not going to be anything either, get it? no violence. no combat. _no movement_. i know i can’t beat you. sooner or later you’re just gonna kill me. it’s sort of your thing, isn’t it? killing people for the fun of it. 

“so, uh, i’ve decided you’re not gonna get to fight anymore. ever.” He taped on the barrier. The area around his finger buzzed like static.

Chara hissed in frustration.  A magic one way barrier. She was boxed in.

“see now, usually these things can be worn down. but i will just keep supplying it with magic.” He tapped the left side of his skull where the blue and yellow light of his eye had begun to fade back to some semblance of normalcy. “so you can swing away for as long as you like. i won’t leave and it won’t break. i won’t let you step through it. even if that means i have to stand here and watch you until the end of time, capiche?”

Chara let her legs fall out from under her. She sat down with a weary thud and sighed, propping her arms up against her knees. Everything hurt. “Shit.”

“yeah.”

She flicked at the barrier. Her fingers bounced back, feeling numb and fuzzy. “Well then, I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens next, huh? Even mountains erode with time. So which one of us is the mountain and which one is the wind?”

He shifted uncomfortably. “you’ll get bored here. if you haven’t gotten bored already. technically you have been doing this a lot longer than i have. sooner or later you will just have to, you know, do your weird thing and put everything back the way it was.”

She scoffed. “Nah.” Her expression turned sly. “Hey, you have me trapped in here. Why don’t you just steal my soul and take matters into your own hands?”

“you uh, you really didn’t leave much left of this place for me to save if i did that. besides, i’m sure i already tried taking your soul in some other timeline. but you’re still here so… i’d probably just fail and you would reset if i tried. you can’t be overpowered i guess.”

His eye sockets were drooping. His grin had faded into something neutral and tired. His head was beginning to slump. Now that he was finally getting a chance to catch his breath it came out in long slow sighs against his scarf.

Chara picked up a pebble and tossed it. It bounced away, rolling out of reach. It had passed through the barrier. Interesting.

She gave him a wary glance then took her knife and gently prodded at the barrier. The tip of the blade seemed to pass through. She tried again with a little more force and met resistance.

Also interesting.

He yawned. He started to lean on a large chunk of marble that had been upturned in the fight. “so, i know you want to kill me. and i know you like to take trophies from all of your favorite kills. the cloak,” he nodded at the black heap of fabric that had been discarded somewhere behind her, “the eyepatch… my brothers boots. not sure where the poker came from. but anyway, to be honest, i’ve been wondering: what did you plan to take from me? what significant item could you possibly want? my coat? that can’t be it. i gave it to you when i thought we were friends and  you threw it away.”

Chara smirked, leaning forward a little. “Oh but Sans, I don’t need a trophy form you. I already took the most precious thing you had.”

He watched her through slit eyes. For a brief moment his hands clenched into fists and his eye spat flames, but it was gone as fast as it had come. “heh. you remind me of a filthy pizza.”

“…what?”

“a filthy pizza shit.” He yawned.

 She grimaced, rolling her eyes.

 “nice try lady, but you’re not going to provoke me into attacking again. i’m keeping you trapped in this box. you’ve finally reached the end. there is nothing left for you now. so, uh, in my personal option, the most ‘determined’ thing you can do here is completely give up and,” he yawned again, “go do literally anything else.”

Chara crossed her arms and in mock worry said, “Wow you look tired Sans. Downright _bone-weary_.”

“heh. i am. it’s been a really long day. longer than it ever should have been if you catch my drift. how long have we really been at it anyway? days? weeks?”

She looked up at the cracked ceiling and shrugged. “Lost track. Won’t matter in the end.”

 He snorted, eyes half closed. “if you say so.”

Chara made herself comfortable and began to concentrate on healing her wounds. She remained quiet and refused to comment on anything Sans said after that. If she didn’t give him a reason to stay awake then eventually he would fall asleep.

She prodded at Rain, demanding she wake from her self-induced angst-coma and come help her mend things.  When she stirred from the blackness and blinked bleary-eyed at the situation she only sent out feelings on confusion.

 _“What’s going on?”_ Her attention turned to Sans. _“Did… did you finally truce? Why aren’t you two fighting?”_

 _“He got tired and stopped playing fair. He trapped us in a box. See?”_ She rapped her knuckles against the shimmering wall.

Sans’s eye pulsed for a moment and his sockets opened a little wider but when he saw that she wasn’t doing anything overly devious he relaxed again.

_“Well you haven’t been playing fair either.”_

_“Don’t be a smartass. Bottom line is I can’t pass through this and he’s sustaining it from the other side. If anything from our side with too much force or mass behind it tries to get through it will just rebound.”_

Rain felt smug. It was an annoying warmth in their chest. _“Guess he finally figured out how to beat you. Just like Mettaton said, the only way to win is to not play at all.”_

Chara watched Sans’s sockets close more and more. He was really starting to lean up against that chunk of stone now. _“I’m not throwing in the towel just yet. I still got a plan.”_

Rain tensed, doing a double take. _“Plan? What plan? What are you talking about?”_

Chara brushed her off. _“Like I would be stupid enough to tell you so you could ruin it_.” Chara made herself comfortable. It was a waiting game now.

As the time ticked by and they waited under the unmoving shadow of a synthetic day, Chara watched Sans fall asleep. His breathing became calm and smooth; his head resting up against the stone, buried in his coat sleeve as he dreamed. He looked peaceful.

Chara slowly got up and began to pace. Her fire iron was not that far away. Just barely outside of her little prison. But maybe, just maybe…

She got down on her belly and slowly pushed her knife out towards the spear. She came up a little short and cursed under her breath.

Then another idea occurred to her. These types of barriers were usually grounded to something. The counter in the MTT resort, the poles that held up the chain in her father’s house; things that kept the field from drifting over time.

Sans couldn’t have cemented things down properly among all of this rubble.

Her heart began to race, little bursts of excitement cheered on by adrenaline. If she could just get the barrier to drift an inch or two to the left...

Ever so gently she pressed her hands up against the field. It made soft crackling noises and the static made her hands feel funny but so long as she was gentle it began to inch along.

She held her breath and bit her tongue to keep Rain from making any sudden noises.

_“Chara. Chara, don’t. Stop it! Dammit!”_

“It’s too late.” She whispered, dropping back down to her belly and using her knife to help tap the handle of her spear into her little box. “It’s time to finish playing the game.”

 _“Sans! Sans wake up! Dammit! Fuck!”_ She was too weak to assume any kind of control. Chara had forced her into healing too much. She was spent. Trapped behind her own eyes.

“Shhh. Can’s you see he’s sleeping?” She cooed, taking up her reclaimed weapon and inching towards him until she was right up against the barrier. She began to lowly slide the poker through the barrier, angling the little backwards hooks just right so that she would be able to snag him. “Hey, Rain, would you like to hear a song?”

_“No!”_

She snickered. “But it’s about you and Sans! Wouldn’t you like to hear that? I’m sure it will help him ‘sleep.’”

Rain was a feeble flame of rage pummeling the back of her mind. Chara could feel her nose starting to bleed again. It didn’t matter. She began to sing, soft and devious.

“It’s Raining..."

_“Sans! Please wake up!”_

"It’s pouring…”

Her mouth worked against her but Rain’s warning failed.

“Ol’ Sans is snoring…”

_"No! No! Stop it! Please!"_

“He went to bed; soon he’ll be dead…”

Her hand trembled as Rain tried to push the weapon away but Chara's grip remained firm.

“And no ones left to mourn him!”

***

_He didn’t really like snow that much. You would think that as a skeleton the cold wouldn’t be a big deal. Well, it wasn’t. Not really.  But it wasn’t always pleasant either. It was an entertaining novelty though._

_He had had to leave the city behind. He had needed someplace a little quieter to help him come to terms with everything that he had lost. And in the crowded Underground you didn’t get much quieter than Snowdin. Most monsters didn’t like the cold and it was too far out of the way to ever see heavy traffic so it made for a decent escape._

_The snow had been really nice at first. Like most monsters, he had been born too late to ever see real weather. Snowdin was the only place where the mix of cold, magic and moisture could create something close to real weather conditions like fog, snow and sometimes sleet, to dazzle them with._

_It had been really nice to see Papyrus’s reaction to snow for the first time. His younger brother loved it here. He didn’t seem to mind the cold or the slick ice. Even now, several years after novelty had become routine; his brother still often sat by the window to watch the snow fall._

_But as for Sans, something about the snow had become unsettling. Repetitive. The snow fell in familiar patterns that made him feel like he was reliving an important memory he had forgotten._

_Sans twitched awake, surprised when he heard a door swing open in the main room down below. Something in the back of his mind told him that noise should not be there._

_“Brother, I’m back! Ah, and it’s snowing again!” A familiar voice called in a chipper tune._

_Sans peeked out from under the covers; messy sheets falling away as he looked out his window and saw the fake storm outside. Without knowing why, Sans was soon beaming. He felt lighter than air. Perhaps one would go so far as to say he felt relieved._

_Why did he suddenly feel that way?_

_He rolled out of bed, casting a glance over his shoulder and looking out the window. This time the snow did not seem so bad. He was glad to see it- although he did not know why. He paused to admire the familiar dancing patterns passing by his window for a moment longer before leaving. He shuffled downstairs at a brisk pace. He wanted to see his brother. He was really happy to hear that he was home. He had been gone for far too long._

_Down below Papyrus was still tapping the slush from his boots. He looked up when he heard Sans coming down the stairs. “Wowie! You’re actually awake? Excellent!”_

_Sans shadowed Papyrus as he wandered around the house and got settled in. “hey bro. how’d it go?” He greeted, voice unusually cheery yet strained. He felt kind of strange, like he had forgotten to do something important back up in his room.  But he was too relieved to care about it now._

_Papyrus smiled, eye sockets closing half way as he put his boots away before wandering into the kitchen. He began to pull stuff out of the cupboards. He tossed some noodles into a pot and turned on the stove. “Wonderful! Undyne said I made a lot of progress today! She was really proud of m-”  He stopped mid-sentence when Sans suddenly broke down and hugged him as tightly as he could, burying his face against his damp clothes._

_At first Papyrus hugged him back without question. But as the seconds ticked by his embrace faltered and he pulled away a bit. “Um, brother, is everything alright?”_

_“yeah! yeah everything’s great. just missed you s’ all.” He assured, pulling himself away and looking up at him._

_Papyrus tilted his head. “I wasn’t gone that long.”_

_Sans pulled up a nearby chair to keep himself busy. He propped his chin up against its back and watched as Papyrus turned his attention back to the kitchen, pulling out other ingredients and turning on the stove. No doubt he planned to make another spaghetti attempt tonight. Sans didn’t mind._

_“yeah i know... just felt longer this time, i guess.”_

_“Well it was time well spent! Prepare to be amazed! For not only did Undyne teach me new fighting techniques but she also at long last revealed  her secret to making the perfect spaghetti sauce!”_

_Sans chuckled. “can’t wait.” His eyes started to wander back up the stairs and up towards the half open door to his room. He was forgetting something important._

_A strange gold light was pouring out his room._

_Ah. He must have just forgotten to turn his light off. He could fix that later._

_“She says the trick,“ Papyrus set some tomatoes down on a cutting board, “is to channel your combat training into everything. Especially cooking! She admits that this means I shall have farther to go before I reach her cooking caliber but I’m still doing really well! See? You just have to crush the tomatoes- like so!”_

_Papyrus took off one glove and carefully set it aside. His knuckles were already stained red from having recently attempted this. The color tickled something in the back of Sans’s mind._

_He really should get back to his room. That light was really distracting._

_But he didn’t want to leave Papyrus. Not yet. The thought filled his chest with some sort of whimpering dread he did not understand. He gripped the back of the chair a little harder and focused on his brother._

_With a wet squelch Papyrus smashed the tomatoes. He made a displeased squawk when seeds and juice went shooting every which way. Red juice soon coated the pot, the cutting board, the wall and Papyrus himself. “Oh darn it!  I forgot the bowl!” He grumbled, messy hand set against his hips while the other came up to bop himself in the head. He glared at his mistake. “We forgot the bowl during our lessons too.”_

_Sans looked at the red liquid dripping down the counter. It tickled a memory._

“oh god. there is just so much red!… good.  good. as it should be.  just means i managed to get something right for once.”

_His brow ridge crunched up at that odd thought._

_The smell of smoke and char began to fill the air. Both brother’s heads whipped around just in time to see the pot of noodles catch fire._

_Papyrus squawked, throwing his hands up in the air before carrying the pot over to the sink. “Oh no! I forgot to add the water!” He stood on his tiptoes and strained to throw the flaming pot into the ridiculously high sink but he couldn’t quite reach._

_Sans doubled over with laughter, watching his brother swing the flaming pot around as he tried to reach the spray nozzle on their too-high sink._

_“Sans! Sans this is not funny! Help!”_

_“i got it bro.” He leapt from his chair and hurried over to the kitchen window. He forced it open with a loud creak of complaint. “over here. over here, hurry. just toss it bro!” He was still laughing._

_With a battle cry Undyne would have been proud of, Papyrus ran to the window. “Nnnyeh!” He shouted, throwing the flaming noodles through the window and out into the snow mound outside. The flames melted away some of the freshly fallen snow to reveal the already existing pile of burnt food underneath._

_Papyrus’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Oh.” He sighed.  “I had a really good feeling about this batch.”_

_Sans clapped him on the shoulder before he turned around and left. “s’ok. kind of late to start dinner anyway.”_

_“It’s only five.” Papyrus grumbled._

_Only five? It felt later than that... longer than that? Sans shook his head, still smiling. Damn, he really needed to fix that light in his room. It was too bright._

_Eh, maybe later. After he got them some grub. He would just run down to Grillby’s and grab something._

_He took his coat from the rack and contemplated throwing on something other than his slippers but decided against it. He looked over his shoulder to tell Papyrus where we was going, but he was gone. The room was dark and empty._

_A woman’s voice echoed through the void. Its familiarity filled him with a mix of emotions so intense they hurt._

_“… **And no one's left to mourn him!** ”_

_His eye ignited in realization. The world around him ended abruptly._

 

***

His eyes snapped open.

She was right there in front of him. Bloodshot eyes boring into his skull, her figure framed by the golden light that poured into the hall like gilded fire. He felt something sharp dig into his sweater, twisting so that its barbed sides scraped up against his ribs in an attempt to snag him.

Without thinking he knocked the attack away and stepped to one side. The fire poker fell to the floor.

A deep hatred pulled his grin all the wider. “Did you really think-”

She rounded on him, something metallic flashing in her hand. He only had enough time to recall some vague memory of her having a knife before he felt it.  In one vicious slash she cut into him, tearing his coat, cutting through his sweater- pushing the blade ever deeper until it chewed into his ribs and beyond.

His mouth fell open. His vision blurred with the spike of pain. The fire in his eyes guttered out.

“Ahah!” She cried in victory, breathing heavily as if that one vicious movement had been the equivalent of a running a marathon. “Tag! _You’re_ it!”

His hand went up to his chest. When he looked down it was covered in red. He could feel something warm leaking out of his mouth and nose.

He fell to his knees, still looking at his red stained hand. He felt very strange. Fuzzy. Tired. More tired than usual. It hurt but his mind was telling him not to care.

“well,” He chuckled a little then stopped when it only made his outline feel all the more blurry. “i guess that’s it then, huh?”

The human threw back her head, laughing at the ceiling, knife falling to the floor. She was unhinged in every sense of the word.

“you…. sick freak. you would laugh at this wouldn’t you? go on then. go do what you do best. and when you get to hell, i will be waiting.” He rasped, trying to push himself back up onto his feet. He had to lean heavily against the dislodged marble slab to do it.

He could see now where he had gone wrong. She had managed to push the barrier out of its original location. She had anticipated where he would doge and had lined herself up so that when he did he had stepped halfway inside her cage.

She crouched down next to him, shaking hands obscuring but not bothering to wipe away the tears that ran down her face.

Was she crying? What was wrong with her?

Her whole body trembled as she giggled. “She’s sorry. She’s so, _so_ sorry you know. She is screaming inside of me: ‘No, no, no!’ Your bleeding _scares_ her. She loved you guys, you know. She loved the monsters she hardly knew! She tried so hard... but it’s too late.” She gripped at her chest, dusty hands bunching up the torn fabric above were her heart was meant to be. “Because this is _mine_ now.”

Her words slowly became distant garbled echoes to him.  He stared down at her boots- _His_ boots…Papyrus…

The world was going dark and blurry. He was starting to forget where he was.

The king’s court.

No… no that wasn’t it. Papyrus wouldn’t be there.  He had just taken off his boots before he went in the kitchen… They were back home, burning spaghetti.

…So why was he...here?

Maybe he had come here to get…his…coat?

He looked down at himself. Oh. He already had his coat on. Haha…

He pushed himself away from the marble.  He felt fuzzy, like his body was being smeared away by a bad eraser. He must be really hungry.

“welp, I’m going to grillby’s.” He proclaimed with a cough, dragging himself along. His dying eyes looked around the room. His room. His house. Yeah, that’s where he was. Papyrus was just over there, in the kitchen, right? “Papyrus…do you want anything?”

Sans closed his eyes and let himself fall.

 


	20. heroes unintended/snares of a lesser evil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~heroes unintended~~ / **snares of a lesser evil**  
>  And thus all the world's Dreemurrs are laid to rest, while others are told that they must wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops forgot to post this last Wednesday. sorry. :x

The hall felt strange now. It had been torn to shambles. Gutted and left for dead like everything else in the Underground. The glass crunched under foot, each little sound echoing against the stone. Yet it still felt quiet. Their tiny world felt too big.

When they left the hall at long last, the person who had walked through the archway so many invisible days ago was not the same person who marched out on the other end. That old version of them had died. Sans had killed them. Or perhaps they had killed themselves.

So what was it that walked out of that hall in the end? Something more? Something less?

They did not know.

Rain was like the last leaf that had clung to its home tree all Fall only to fall away dry, dead and ugly in the first cold winds of winter. She didn’t move. She didn’t stir. She looked everywhere and nowhere all at once; her eyes unfocused upon dust and rubble. She was disassociated from everything. Time, her body, even her own thoughts were a blur. It felt like she was somewhere high overhead looking down on herself through a fog.

Chara was at long last allowed to proceed in peace.

One would think that as an adult the castle would have looked smaller than she remembered. She had been just a kid the last time she had been here after all. Yet even in an adult body the halls still felt massive and sturdy and when she at long last came to the throne room, it felt just as imposing as she remembered. Being built for the mountain of a monster that was Asgore probably had something to do with that.

Speaking of which, Chara stopped short when she realized Asgore was in the room up ahead.  He was as massive and imposing as ever. His golden mane of hair caught the warm synthetic sunlight, his massive horns curving high above his head.  A royal purple cloak was draped over his massive shoulders and trailed behind him as he drifted from flower to flower like an awkward bumblebee.

Rain’s tired eyes dragged themselves over to him, taking in the towering figure of the king.

They were completely dwarfed by him. If they stood beside him they would have to take a step back and crane their neck just to look him in the eye. For a brief moment Rain wondered if this grand beast she had been told so much about would perhaps be a match for Chara. He certainly looked imposing enough.

She dismissed the thought a moment later, feeling too tired to hold onto the idea for long. He would fall just like the rest.

Chara wrinkled her nose in displeasure at the familiar smell of flowers. In her absence Asgore had allowed the accursed plants to consume the whole garden. There was probably some heart wrenching sentimentality behind his choice but it only left a bitter taste in her mouth.

The first time she had died, it had been with the taste of yellow flowers in her throat. The second time she had died, it had been because she had tried to rest her body in a golden bed of petals.  When she was buried, these were the flowers that had acted as her blanket. And when she had awoken once more is was a golden flower that had once again tried to kill her.

She was so tired of yellow. Perhaps she would burn the garden when she was done here.

The king had his back to her over on the far end of the room now. He was kneeling among one of his many flowerbeds with his head bowed so that only his horns and tufts of golden hair could be seen over the arc of his broad shoulders.

A familiar voice reached her from across the room, its tone quavering and shrill with desperation. “Y-you don’t understand! You have to! Please Da-Asgore; go get them before she gets here. I know you don’t think you can do it but you have to try.”

Chara’s lips twisted in disgust.

Asgore’s voice was deep and soothing in response. “Slow down. I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say, friend. Who is coming to visit?”

Asriel let out a frustrated growl that hinted at the voice he had once had. “There’s no time! I was stupid. So stupid!” He sobbed. “I cut the power so you wouldn’t know. I helped her with all the puzzles and traps! There is nothing left to stop her now. So if you can’t do it, then let me. Just…just show me where they are and I will d…do…” He trailed off, his small face peeking out from under the corner of Asgore’s cloak.  His watery eyes went wide and he snaked back into the ground with a little gasp of realization.

“Hello? Where have you gone? Flowey, was it?” Asgore rose to his feet and scanned the immediate area, scratching his head with a massive claw. “Curious. I have never seen a plant cry before.”

Chara rolled her eyes. Thank god Asgore was a slow one.

The sound of her passing through the foliage was enough to draw the king’s attention. With a small ear twitch he looked over his shoulder before turning around to meet her. He was wearing a full set of armor, its dark polished surface glinting in the light. That was new. Perhaps the big oaf had realized something was wrong after all.

“Huh?” He looked down his snout at her from across the closing distance. He frowned in thought. “You. You must be the one the flower just warned me about.”

She shrugged. “Guilty as charged.”

“Oh. Well, howdy!” His frown deepened. “Erm, forgive me for having to ask, but what kind of monster are you? Sorry, I cannot tell.” He admitted with a sheepish smile.

She twirled her spear and pulled out her knife. “Only the worst kind.”

He took a step back and raised his hands in a gesture of peace. “Now, now, there is no need to fight. I don’t know why you are so upset but,” He gestured to a small room with a table off to the side. “Why don’t we settle this over a nice cup of tea? I would be happy to listen to whatever it is you-”

With a running jump Chara closed the last of the distance between them. She aimed for his exposed neck and drove her fire poker down with all her might.

His eyes widened in dismay. He brought up a hand to try and stop her but it was too late. The blow struck true and sank deep inside his chest. The ground shook as he fell  to his knees, gaping in disbelief as one massive hand went up to touch the poker logged up against his collarbone.

She had wondered if she would feel some sort of conflict at having done this but she only felt… cold. It was almost frustrating.

Almost.

Chara leaned in close to whisper to him, red eyes staring over his shoulder as her lips twisted into a soft smirk. “I did it, father. I didn’t give up. I stayed _Determined_ , just like you said. I came back for you. I have chosen the future for humans and monsters.”

“Why… you…” His outline trembled, his shaking arms helping to prop up his weakening body. A white light was beginning to grow in front of his chest as his soul began to detach itself from his body. He smiled, lip quivering. “Are…Chara, aren’t you?...How…?” He reached out to touch her face.

Behind him the air filled with several shimmering dots that danced like bubbles struggling to maintain their shape against the weight of their own mass. All at once they tightened into the solid shape of twirling pellets and shot forward, drilling deep into Asgore’s back.

“What?” Chara balked; confusion and surprise rooting her in place. Asgore teetered forward from the force of the blow, eyes rolling up into his head as he fell. Chara stepped forward, arms reaching out as if to catch him as he fell. His soul! She had to catch his soul!

“I… missed you…so…” He hit the ground and his body scattered into dust, swirling around her feet and catching in her dirty hair.

Just a few inches below her eye level a small white heart shape trembled, struggling to maintain its form. She reached out to take it but a single whirling bullet darted by, piercing the heart at its center. Shattering its existence before continuing on to graze her cheek with a small red mark. She held her hand suspended in the air in disbelief, her eyes wide and unblinking.  She didn’t quite comprehend what had just happened.

Gone. It was gone. The last soul, the only soul she could have used to get out- was gone.

Slithering out from behind the empty throne on his belly like the snake he was, Asriel made his appearance. “Chara! Chara!” He chirped, loud and shrill. “See? I never betrayed you! It was all a trick, see? I was trying to trick him into showing us were he hid the souls!”

“Asriel, do you know what you just did?”

“I killed him! Just for you Chara, just for you!” His leaves were shaking, his eyes wide and his smile nothing more than a grimace with upturned edges. “I was waiting to kill him for you. It’s my present to you. I finally got rid of the old man so he won’t be in our way! After all, I am your best friend and best friends help each other.” He was crawling towards her, vines bunching into nervous knots behind him.

“You idiot!” She screamed, kicking the tops off of several flowers and storming up to him. He shrank back, petals wilting. “You destroyed his soul! His _soul_ , Asriel! The only boss monster soul in the Underground strong enough to be absorbed!”

“W…what?” He peeped, eyes darting around. “B-but, Chara. You have my soul, don’t you? I-I lost it. When I died I stopped feeling. I thought… I thought you must have kept it with you?”

She knelt next to him, teeth flashing as she spat. “Your soul is gone. All that’s left -if there is anything left- is inside of you. Withered, broken and missing half its pieces! “

“And, and mother? What about her?” He brightened at this thought, overly enthusiastic in a vain hope that such optimism would be infectious. “I’m sure you took _her_ soul!”

She seized him by the stem, just under his stupid golden head. “Even if I hadn’t been buried under ruble when she died, she was still weak. Weak and sad and hopeless! She broke too fast for me to catch her. Don’t play dumb with me brother, you already knew this. You killed her enough times to know.” As an afterthought she added, “And now I also know that you have spent half your lifetime messing with Sans and never bothered to warn me about him. He knew things he shouldn’t have and kept me stuck out in the hall for weeks. What game have you been playing at, Asriel? Are you really stupid enough to try and manipulate _me_?”

“I-I, I didn’t have time to tell you! You chased me away! I-” That strange, ever-morphing face of his turned into something familiar. His true face. Asriel’s face. Or at least a pretty good likeness off it. “I’m helpful! I can be useful, I promise! Just give me another chance. Please, Chara, I won’t get in your way. I can help! I- I can, I can-” Tears spilled down his cheeks and ran off of his petals like rain.

_Rain. How Ironic._

“Please don’t kill me!” He sobbed.

Chara’s crushing grip softened a little. She cupped his trembling petals and fought down her own anger. “Shhh. There, there my brother. Be quiet and listen.” She cooed. “You have done something very bad. And now you are going to have to make up for it. Do you understand?  Are you willing to make it up to me?”

He looked up at her, dismayed and relieved. “Yes.” He squeaked. “Yes, of course. T-thank you!”

She gripped him by the stem and pulled out her knife. “Good.”

***

She drummed her fingers up against the armrest, her other hand holding up her sullen face. Things had taken a turn for the worst. There wasn’t really a good way to describe the tight spot she was in now.

She sighed, collecting the stray petals from her torn and dirty shirt and making a neat pile in her hand. She held them up to the air so that the gentle, aimless breeze of the Underground could take them up one by one and let them dance for a few feet before eventually falling away into the sea of their still-living brethren and her father’s dust.

What a filthy waste.

She poked at Rain in an attempt to lift her own spirits. “So, I guess my _Rain_ of terror is official now, huh?” She teased, crossing her legs and taking on a stern pose, both hands gripping the arms of the throne.

It seemed that Rain’s mind had retreated too far to give her a response.

She huffed in annoyance. “I have been waiting to make that joke since day one and now the only person left alive to hear it won’t wake up?” She prodded at Rain again but it was no use. “Hey! I’m talking to you!” She grumbled. “Never mind. I don’t want to hear your annoying whimpering anyway.” She got up and dusted herself off and put her knife back in her pocket.

She didn’t know the exact details of why or how Asriel had become a flower but he had once had the ability to manipulate and reset time just like she did. She had thought that surely that meant that there was still something inside of him powerful enough to persist after death. Something powerful enough to absorb. Something still monster in origin.

She had been wrong.

Whatever it was that was left inside of him, it wasn’t a soul. Her accusation that whatever he possessed was broken beyond recondition had rang far truer than she had first thought. He had just been so… empty. When he died he didn’t even turn to dust. He just became an everyday flower, sticky sweet sap dripping from his stem.

With the Dreemurr family’s resources exhausted, she had reluctantly gone back to her last save point. Lucky for her she had set her next save down shortly after killing Sans, so she didn’t have to go through that twice.

Again she entered the throne room. Again Asriel hid upon her arrival. Again she tried and failed to obtain Asgore’s soul.

Once more Asriel begged for mercy, once more she laid him down to rest among the other flowers.

At first she had almost believed him when he had sworn the destruction of Asgore’s soul had just been a foolish oversight on his part. Maybe it really had been at first. But he actually seemed to remember things with proper clarity when she reset. His high levels of Determination were still good for something, it seemed. He feigned ignorance when he destroyed the king’s soul a second time but he tried to run from her on the third attempt as soon as the deed was done, giving away his secret.

She tried to warn him to stay away from Asgore on the fourth reload. If he didn’t ruin things for her she promised she would let him live. Yet still he returned at the last moment and destroyed the soul.

What he was doing was no accident.

He knew that Asgore’s soul was the last thing she wanted. He knew she wouldn’t actually let him live but so long as she didn’t have the soul, he knew that she would continue to reload and try again because that’s just the kind of person she was. And as long she kept reloading he could keep living in that precious little bubble of time. He could continue to survive within that limbo.

Had he first chosen to do this to her out of a change of heart? Did he feel some semblance of pity for monster kind and the humans above?

 No. Of course not. He was beyond that. He was just selfish and afraid and like so many others before him, he was scared to die. So he was willing to face her wrath again and again and again in order to preserve himself in any way he could.

Pathetic. Ingenious! **Frustrating**.

Eventually she had to top and take a break from her resets. He was becoming too tricky to kill and she didn’t feel safe letting him slink off to make more plans while she tried to organize her thoughts. So when next she killed him, she let him stay dead.

For a long time she wandered the halls of the castle. She slept in her old bed which was far too small and knocked over every potted plant in the castle. She took up the king’s room for her own, tore down all the old pictures she had drawn and wore his long purple cloak while she watched his garden burn.

Over time an idea began to tickle the back of her mind as she wandered.

But no. Even if she knew where to find them it would be too risky.

But… what if she could?

The idea began to take root and grow. If she could pull it off she could be stronger than she had originally hoped. But if she failed, she could lose everything. If they awakened Rain there was a chance that they would try to help her.

No. No she couldn’t risk it. Not after all this. She would find a way to trap Asgore eventually. She just needed time to think.

But if she were to risk it… where would they be? Asriel could never find them and who knows how long he had been looking.

She wandered up and down the halls, deep in thought.

“What kind of monster is Asgore?” She pondered allowed. “Soft. Too soft.” She had recently found all the coffins downstairs. Her own had been empty. And odd thing to see.  But knowing he had kept them all so close was important. He had not had them carried off somewhere quiet and remote where he would not have to think about them. Having them in the castle must have been an agonizing reminder of what he had done and yet he had chosen to keep them.

He was in the castle alone. Toriel had left, his son had died. The world had left him to tend to his coffins.

“He carries his burdens alone.”

They would be in the castle.  Somewhere deep inside. Somewhere hidden.

She asked herself the question again: what kind of monster was Asgore?

Well, everyone had loved him because he was kind of a pushover. He wore his heart on his sleeve and wasn’t one to be deceptive with words. Mother had been the real brains behind the operation. If something required deep thought, planning or elegance she usually had a hand in it. But she had left. So the location would have been left up to Asgore.

She wandered deep into the castle where its walls met with the slope of the mountain. The halls were smooth and gray here. The light much more dim. It was here that the exit waited for her, its stone archway old and patient. She ran her hand along its dull surface. “Hello, old friend.” She had so been looking forward to passing through that arch once more.

The room was filled with a strange light. It was too distorted by magic to call sunlight but sometimes as the barrier danced and shimmered she imagined she could almost see the faint outlines of what was on the other side.

She sat down and watched it for a while, imagining what it must be like on the other side. She had been gone a long time. Rain’s memories helped fill her in one some of the things that had advanced in her absence but still there was so much that would have changed by now.

She continued to talk to herself.  “He’s quite literal about things. No real flare, no garnish.” She snorted in amusement. “ _Home_ and _New Home_. “

Something caught her eye. She frowned, leaning forward to take a closer look. There was a small hole in the center of the floor in front of the arch. That had not been there before. She was absolutely sure of it.

She and Asriel had spent countless days playing in here. One of their favorite games had been throwing balls or stones at the barrier because it would kick up a huge shower of sparks that they could take turns running under. They would spend a whole afternoon seeing who could kick up the biggest shower and make the loudest noise while the other sibling stood under it. Asriel would always get scared and chicken out first.

Upon closer inspection there were other small changes in the floor now. Small oval tiles barely visible unless one put their nose close to the ground. They were made of the same material as the floor and the outline of each tile was so snug and smooth that it was only as thick as a few strands of hair.

Home because it was home. New home because it was their new home. Waterfall was wet. Hotland was hot.

He carried his own burdens and kept them close.

He was a practical man without much flare.

She reached out to trace the tiles with her finger but was met by the numbing zap of static. Her hand jerked back in surprise and she squinted at the archway. There was a second barrier here now, monster made. It was anchored to something in the floor and camouflaged by the already shimmering wall of light from the human made barricade.

“No.” She gasped, sitting up and counting the tiles.

Seven. There were several ovals in the floor.

“Asgore you didn’t!” She laughed, running her hands across the floor. Of course! He would keep them close and put them right where they would be needed! No one would bother to come to the archway unless they were going to use the souls anyway, so why not hide them in the one place you would only bother to go if you already had the souls handy?

“This is literally the equivalent of hiding your key under the doormat. How has no one found this yet?” She examined the hole in the floor. Some sort of keyhole to unlock the barrier and reveal the captured souls perhaps? Its shape sort of reminded her of the bottom of her father’s trident but that was long gone now. It had died with him.

She began to smack her iron rod against the magic wall, kicking up clouds of static. It would take a long time to do this but she didn’t have the key. Eventually the small monster made barrier would have to run out of juice. They wouldn’t have dared power it with the energy from the man-made one. They would have risked accidentally making the souls permanently inaccessible. In time she could break through. She was in no hurry.

Six. Six human souls. That’s how many they had collected before she had come.

Seven. Seven souls were needed to break the barrier.

Seven was Chara’s lucky number.

***

_“I’m going to be gone a lot for the next few weeks.”_

_“Why?” She caught the Frisbee and flung it back over to him. He had to jump in order to catch it._

_“Mom found a lady teaching cooking classes in the cirty. She signed me up. The drive is kind of long so I will probably just be staying with my Gran while I take them.”_

_“Oh.”_

_He tossed the Frisbee back to her. “When I get back I will teach you everything I learned.”_

_“Ok.”_

_He scuffed the ground with his sneaker. It caused him to miss the Frisbee when she threw it back. He didn’t seem to notice. “Sorry that I won’t be around for your birthday.”_

_She waved away the comment and tried to act like it didn’t bother her. “Nah its ok. You go do that thing you do. It’s important for you to learn how to make your dreams come true. Otherwise you’d just get stuck up on this mountain forever like my parents did.”_

_“Yeah I know. Still feel kind of bad though. I think this will be the first time I have missed a birthday since we met.”_

_She shrugged and walked past him. She could see the neon green of the Frisbee stuck in one of the pine trees several yards behind him. He seemed too distracted to go get it himself._

_“So, what’s your dream then, Song Bird? How are you going to get off the mountain?” He asked._

_She shrugged and tucked her chin up against the collar of her shirt. “Dunno yet.”_

_“Well you have to like doing_ something _. I bet you could sing if you wanted to. I don’t care what your mom tells you. You are really good.”_

_She turned around and brushed her hair away from her eyes. The warm sunlight cut through the chilled air and made her red hair ignite like fire. It also helped to distracted from her nervous blushing. “I don’t know, Daniel.” She muttered again. “I mean, I sort of wanted to be a dancer.”_

_“Oh. Well that’s cool too!” He beamed, walking up next to her and nodding his approval. “What kind? Ballet? Ballroom? Hip-hop? Oh, do you like the uh, oh what’s it called, the stuff they do on that Riverdance show?” He smacked himself on the forehead. “Tap-dancing. Duh.”_

_“I uh, I really like the look of the Latin dances. You know. Salsa, Cha Cha, stuff like that.”_

_“Oh so like,” He plucked a dandelion from the grass and clenched it between his teeth and waggled his eyebrows. “The steamy stuff.”_

_She laughed and shoved him away. “Yeah ok, the steamy stuff!”_

_He laughed with her a little then scrunched up his face in displeasure as the taste of the dandelion began to sink in._

_“Oh my god did you seriously bite into that thing?”_

_“Yes.” He spat out onto the grass. “Bleh.”_

_“Was it worth it?”_

_“Think so.” He frowned. “Hey, what happen to my Frisbee?”_

_“Over there.” She pointed at the pine tree it had gotten stuck in._

_“Ah.” He jogged over to retrieve it, talking over his shoulder as he went. “So are you going to get lessons or something? Have you talked to your parents about it?”_

_Her smile fell. She tucked her hands into the sleeves of her hoodie and then hid everything up to her elbows away in her pockets. “Nah. I mean, I’ve mentioned it once or twice but they don’t think I’m cut out for it.”_

_“What? Why not?”_

_“They said it would be too much hassle. Besides, I’m too fat and clumsy to make a good dancer.”_

_Daniel stiffened. “Don’t say that.”_

_She shrugged. “Well its true, isn’t it?”_

_He tossed the Frisbee back to her. His brow was knit together in disapproval. “You’re not fat.”_

_She leaped up to catch the Frisbee and missed. It sailed high overhead. She slipped on the wet grass and fell flat on her butt._

_“You ok?” Daniel was standing over her in a moment, offering his hand and a good-natured chuckle._

_“Yeah. See? Told you I’m clumsy.”_

_“Heh. Well, maybe a little bit. Sometimes. But I bet you could still dance if you wanted to. And you’re still not fat.”_

_“Eh, maybe I should just aim for something more practical in the meantime. Something stable to get me started.”_

_“Well, is there something else you would like to do that would make you happy?” He had his hands on his hips and was blowing the dark hair out of his eyes. They had lost the Frisbee again. Truly, they were both horrible at this game._

_“Well, to be honest I would  be happy if I_ _just_ _got to do something that helped the people I care about be happy too. That’s all.”_

_“That’s it?”_

_She shrugged. “Yeah.” She hesitated a little, her fuzzy boots kicking at the weedy little flowers in the grass around her. “Hey, Daniel? If you ever do get to open that restaurant like you are always talking about, do you think I could work there too? With you?”_

_He blinked in surprise. “Sure, Song Bird. In a heartbeat.  If you really wanted to, that is.”_

_She smiled in relief. “Good. Good, I think that will be my new dream then. Helping you get that restaurant so we can both work there.” Helping other people achieve their dreams sounded like a nice dream to her._

_He returned her smile. “If you want, when I get back we can make a late birthday lunch together or something using all the stuff I learned during my lessons.”_

_She bounced on her heels; hair bobbing as she breathed into her cupped hands to warm her nose. Spring was dragging its feet this year. “Ok. I’d like that. Sounds fun.” She looked around for the Frisbee. It had passed through the tree line again. Its neon green markings shone through the bush it was entangled in. “I’m gonna go get that. Then maybe we should go inside and do something else. We suck at this.”_

_“Yeah. Dogs make this stuff look too easy. I just keep getting hit in the nose. Hey, I went online and found that anime you were talking about yesterday. Want me to go set that up?”_

_“That depends. Is it the sub or the horrible, horrible English dub?”_

_Daniel grimaced. Her love of horrible English voice acting drove him mad but he loved her enough to humor her now and again. “It’s the dub.” He sighed._

_She beamed at him. “Then sure! Be right there.”_

_Daniel jogged off towards the house, still shaking his head in defeat._

_She wove her way in-between the trees and made her way over to the bright green shape among the bushes._

_The world warped and rippled like someone had just thrown a rock into a pool of still water. The ground rocked so violently that she fell to her knees. A terrible screaming sound burrowed deep inside her skull. Screeching brakes, nails on a chalkboard, someone in great pain- they seemed to originate from everywhere all at once.  Then, ever so slowly, she began to realize the screams were coming from her._

_The wind howled, making the trees bow to it in hopes of a mercy that did not come. A voice called out, desperate and familiar. It was calling for a name she did not know. Lightning flashed in the sky above, painting the sudden boiling black cloud cover overhead in a bright array of unnatural colors._

_The voice called out for that name again. It was Daniel, it had to be._

_She struggled to her feet, grasping at sticky pine branches to keep herself from falling over as a chaos of neon lightning unraveled itself in the sky above her. Blue, yellow, orange, purple- a hundred different lightning strikes dancing across her vision._

_“Go back inside!” She cried, bracing herself against the violent wind.  Several voices were screaming in that wind, talking over the top of each other. “Daniel! Go back! It’s not safe!” But when she looked out in the direction of the house, there was only darkness. Everything was gone. Yet still the voice was there._

_“You can’t give up. You can’t let her win.”_

_She spun around, the voice was right in her ear, clear and calm despite the madness around her.  At first she thought she was looking at the green of the Frisbee. Then she realized it had a soft glow to it. It was shaped like a heart._

_A wispy green outline stepped into full view. He took her by the hands and held her close. “She tried to make us bend but we won’t. Not for her. Not for anyone. Not until we know there will be peace.”_

_“D-Daniel? What is this? What’s happening? What’s going on?”_

_His vague shape looked up in the sky above them. The black clouds were growing ever darker. “This is not real. But its not a dream either. Not exactly. It’s Chara. She’s trying to fight us.”_

_It all came flooding back to her with the gentle grace one expected from being hit by a bag of bricks. She had retreated deep into her mind and fallen asleep. She was still in the Underground and Chara was the one in control._

_“Daniel, there is nothing left. I tried. I tried but I couldn’t stop her.” She cried._

_He didn’t seem to hear her. “We don’t have much time. Come on, we have to get you out of here. We have to try and find a way to separate you two.” He took her by the hand and pulled her along. They had hardly gone three steps before black gnarled tendrils sprung up around them like sickly tree roots. They latched onto her and pulled her back, her red soul manifesting and burning bright in panic the moment the darkness touched her._

_She saw Daniel’s faint shape become ensnared in the black tendrils as well. The world itself seemed to snarl at them, dripping with venom as Chara’s darkness fought against the human souls._

_“Daniel!” She screamed, the shadows ripping the two of them free of each other’s grasp and dragging them farther and farther back. Above them the lightning was becoming less and less common in its strikes. Chara was pushing them away._

_“You have to wake up! She’s sending you back! Fight her! Don’t give up! Stay Determined! You can beat her! She’s not even-”_

***

All at once the world went completely dark. All the light, all the fighting souls in the sky- everything- it all winked out of existence. It was like she had been sucked into the vacuum of space.

She cartwheeled through the nothingness, struggling to open her eyes. Her mind reeled at the realization that she had no eyes to open. Or she did, but there was simply no world left to see. They were in the void that carried them between deaths.

_“What…?”_

Chara’s bitter voice came through, rabid and snarling like a cold northern wind. _“I’m afraid I must once again admit that I have lied to you, Rain.”_

 _“Where are we?”_ They continued to drift and fall, the nothingness stretching on far longer than usual. They could usually see the end of the tunnel by now but somehow this trip seemed to be taking them farther back. She kept trying to twist herself around to find something, anything that resembled the end but she was lost. _“Where are we going?”_

 _“Isn’t it obvious? Didn’t you hear your friend?  Asriel ruined everything. There was nothing left for me there and your friends were certainly not going to cooperate for plan B. So we are going to go and fix the little mistake of ever having let my brother live in the first place. We are going back, Rain._ **All** _the way back._

_Back to the very beginning of our little adventure.”_

 

 

 

**_End of arc one: Rainfall._ **

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well there you have it! The last chapter in the Rainfall arc. The story will be on hiatus for about two weeks while I set things up for arc two. I think I will keep publishing them as chapters added to this story instead of creating a separate Work.  
> So if anyone has actually made it this far and is enjoying it, please favorite and comment if you can. I can’t tell if anyone has stuck around past the first few chapters or not and I would love to know if someone out there has Dx  
> If you feel too shy to say anything you can just make random animal sounds at me or something- I will know what you mean! :D  
> Anyway, if you are there, see you in a few weeks!


	21. A second chance/Here we are again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~A second chance~~ / **Here we are again**  
>  Rain wakes up. It was all just a bad dream!  
> ...Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *takes a deep breath* ok! I'm here! I'm back! i'm so sorry about how late this is! D:

 

 

 ******

 

Usually when Chara reset things and pulled them back to a save point, they fell towards their body at a blinding speed and then abruptly stopped without any sort of physical impact. That was not the case this time. This time they really did fall and they fell hard.

The unforgiving ground raced up to embrace her, rocks jabbing into her ribs and the wind forced out of her lungs with a loud _Oof_! Her clothes were stained with a cold damp dew and the ground beneath her smelled of flowers and fresh earth. Everything hurt. It ached and throbbed but most of her injuries felt like nothing more than the stage-setting for a nasty bruise. Their time with Sans had given them both a knack for speedy healing so it was nothing to worry about. The worst of it was already healing, the familiar if not entirely comfortable sensation bringing quick relief to the worst of the fall damage.

At long last Rain was able to open her eyes. She blinked several times, chasing away the blur and revealing a familiar cavernous setting filled with crumbling ruins, massive looming stalactites and a bed of yellow flowers. The distant chirps of birds echoed against the furthest cavern walls.

Her mouth fell open in disbelief. She was still dreaming. She had to be.

 She bit the side of her cheek, the pain assuring her of what the fall should have already made obvious: this was not a dream. She was back at the start. She was back at the very beginning. Was that even possible? How was that possible?

She ran her hands over her face, feeling her own eyelashes brush up against her palms. She felt warm tears touch her skin.

Raindrops fell upon her head, soft and cool. She looked up, droplets touching her teeth as she continued to gape up at the hole in the stone-set sky.

 Rain. _Real_ rain!

She cradled herself, hand over her mouth as she laughed, sobbed, then laughed again.

She was back! She was _back_! All of those things, all of those horrible, hellish things, they had not happened!

Had they?

A dream. Maybe it had all been a dream. A horrible, god-awful dream. Maybe she had just been lying here this whole time. God, she really hoped so. She would give anything to convince herself that was true.

She looked around, shivering against the damp cold. She moved to tug her cloak around her a little tighter but it wasn’t there. She looked down in realization. Everything was gone. The torn black cloak, the spear, the eyepatch, those gut-wrenching flame colored boots caked in dust- all of it was gone.

Instead she was wearing her dark red hoodie and sneakers again, their laces undone. The holes in her clothes were gone too.

“Thank you. Oh god, thank you.” She breathed, rocking back and forth, flexing her sore muscles, opening and closing her hands. She could move again! She could _speak_!

She had just awoken form a horrible nightmare. Her mind still reeled at the thought.

...Had it all been real?

No. No of course not. Monsters? Souls? Time travel? Ridiculous!

Her beaming smile fell away. Then again, had she not just healed her own wounds without even thinking about it?

Her stomach dropped out from under her in a sudden jolt of fear. If she had gone this far back, did that mean that Chara was still there? Or had they not made their deal yet?

She dove into the back of her own mind to check, hands gripping at the folds of her hoodie as if holding onto something would keep Chara from dragging her away again if she was still there.

She felt it right away: that telltale thick, rolling darkness. The moment her presence touched it she leaped away again in alarm.

Chara awakened inside of her, springing forward like a striking snake. Grabbing onto her and dragging her kicking and screaming back into the darkness.

“No! No! I won’t go back! You can’t have my soul! Not this time! I won’t give it to you!”

_“You already did, Rain. Just because we have gone all the way back doesn’t mean that the other timeline didn’t happen. You made a deal. You made a promise. We are going to go and see the sun. We are going to do things **right** this time.”_

She screamed, doubling over with her face in the dirt as she struggled against the rising shadow; those smothering tendrils that pulled her away from her own eyes like some many-limbed creature, dragging her into the depths of her own dark ocean of thought.

Something in the flowers stirred.

Both Rain and Chara froze, Chara still pressing her ethereal weight down on top of her as if to smother her.

A single flower arose from the golden bed. Its petals were larger and deeper in color than all the rest. Its long stem pushed its head higher and higher until it could see above its counterparts. Its foliage bobbed a little as it gently swung its head this way and that, looking around as if curious about how it had gotten there.

Rain opened her mouth and found herself choking on nothing. Chara shoved her away like she always did.

The sound of their struggle caused Flowey to turn to face them at last. The friendly guise of his pale smiling face twitched for a brief moment. He blinked, looking side to side with a little frown. Then he shook himself, droplets of water flying from his petals. “Howdy!” He chimed. “I’m Flowey. Flowey the Flower. You are new to the Underground-” he frowned a little, “right?”

So they had managed to go so far back that even Flowey had forgotten them.

Chara pulled them to their feet and step forward, acting apprehensive. “Yes. I am. What’s going on? Where am I?”

He shook off any of his previous lingering doubts at the sight of Chara's feigned confusion and gave them a big cheery smile. “Oh, golly! Then you must be so confused! You need someone to show you how things work down here.” He bobbed to the left then the right in a fluffy act of looking to see if anyone else would step forward to volunteer. “I guess lil ol me will have to do!” He said with a wink.

Chara inched a little closer, dabbing at her eyes like she was trying to hold back tears. “I’m so scared Asr-Flowey! I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Well come here you big silly and let me show you the ropes!”

Like a flash flood of defiance Rain rose up in rebellion, her soul rolling like the boiling rapids of a river. Their mouth fell open as the two souls fought for control, emitting a strange croak as they swooned forward a step, causing Flowey to blink and hesitate in his already known lines.

“Asriel!” Rain shouted, choking on her words as she forced them out. “Run! Chara will ki-”

Chara gagged her. “Shut up!”

Flowy shrank away, confused. “C-Chara?” He peeped, some strange memory coming back to him.

“Run Asriel! Run! She’s going to kill you! She already has!” While Rain’s voice begged him to flee, her body dove for him, fingers grasping at his stem and trying to tear him from the ground.

He wove out of the way, terror and realization painting his face with shock.  He slipped into the ground.

Between her body’s own frustrated screams she continued to shout her warning. “Warn Sans! Warn Sans! Tell them all to evac-” She choked. She felt a strange pain in her chest and then darkness began to eat away at her vision.

She was falling again. This time the trip lasted less than a second.

She hurt. Her whole body hurt.

Her flesh began to mend.

She opened her eyes. She was lying in the dirt again. Rain was falling overhead.

Chara barreled up from the depths of their existence and took control.

A flower in a nearby flower bed was rising up above all the others...

The sudden unexpected reset made Rain’s mind swim in confusion.  Their eyes rolled around in their head. Chara muttered a curse under her breath and wobbled forward, knees sporadically giving out every few steps.

The flower twitched around, hearing their clumsy footsteps. “H-Howdy?”

Rain staged her rebellion once more. In their disoriented state it was easier to assume control but also easier to lose it. “Asriel, its Chara! Run and find help! She won’t forgive you! She wants to kill you!”

Chara dove at him again; frustrated screams making their throat go raw. She tore off leaves and petals but ultimately lost her prey. “No!” She snarled.

A cold pain in their chest.

The world was going dark.

They were falling.

Flesh was mending…

The smell of wet earth.

 It was raining…

“Uhhh?” Flowey croaked, head hanging low over the other flowers.

Rain’s stomach churned. The rapid resets pulling them back to a beginning which took place mere seconds ago plus the falling sensation and the disorientation made it feel like the room was spinning. 

“Chara- is going to- kill you.” Rain panted.

Chara lurched in his general direction but he was already gone. Instead she found herself staggering off to the side and propping herself up against a boulder as she doubled over. Their stomach lurched, the disorienting movements and dizzying confusion was enough to cause the last, long forgotten human-made meal they had eaten above ground to state its displeasure with their shenanigans. The threw up in the grass while the world continued to tilt and spin.

“Quit doing that.” Chara ordered, wiping their mouth on their sleeve.

Pain.

Darkness.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

They immediately threw up- then continued to dry heave because the thought of throwing up the same breakfast granola twice was fucking _weird_.

If Flowey was there waiting for them this time, they didn’t see him.

“She’ll kill you! She’ll kill everyone!” Rain warned, wiping at her mouth and rising to shaky legs. She stood there, knees wobbling as she leaned against the nearest boulder for support.

_“Oh save it!”_ Chara sighed with impatience. _“He’s already gone.”_

Rain waited for the darkness.  She screwed her eyes shut against the anticipation of falling again but nothing happened.

Chara was taking a moment to compose herself.

Rain wanted to run screaming into the darkness and take them as far away from the rest of the world as she could but every path, every cavern, every room would eventually lead her to a dead end or to the home of some unsuspecting monster.

_“That’s right.”_ Chara finally yanked away her control. “Nowhere to go but up.” 

All these resets and jumbled memories of fights that had not “happened” yet left Rain feeling drained and weak. She allowed herself to be tossed aside. Flowey had escaped. She had won this battle and she would take that victory like a drowning man grasping at straws.  Now it was time to rest and catch her breath.

She couldn’t win everything. Not all at once. Chara was still there and between the two of them her willpower seemed to be the strongest.  But all those things that they had done before, they were gone. Erased. Reset. Everyone was still alive. The idea brought both dread and relief to Rain. She was already so tired. She just wanted to close her eyes and rest. She wanted to give up. But maybe, just maybe, she could find the strength inside herself to fight just a little bit longer now.

What was it that Daniel had been trying to tell her? What weakness did Chara have for her to find? The idea seemed to be lurking just beyond the edge of thought.

She needed time to think.

Those stats Chara had boasted of before, those sickening terms she used to describe life like a game: LV and EXP, those things must have been reset. That impassable wall of power she had used to wall Rain in with was gone. Of course Chara still wasn't a force to scoff at now that she had been fully awakened but maybe somehow Rain could find a way to…?

She closed her eyes. To what? She didn’t know. Could she really make Chara give up somehow? Sans couldn’t get her to do it and unlike her he had actually known what the hell he was doing.

She needed to rest. She would need her strength for later. She needed to think. The other souls had known something. Something important enough to cause Chara to run all the way back to the beginning to escape them.

While Rain fell into silent thought, their journey continued.

She knew couldn’t save them all. Hell, maybe she couldn’t save any of them. But it was worth a try. Daniel was still out there somewhere. He had tried to help her. The other souls had given her a second chance. They wanted her to fight.

She wished they didn’t.  She wished she could just say she had tried and then throw in the towel and fall asleep. But if Daniel believed she could do it then she would try.

She would frustrate Chara. Ruin her plans and warn as many powerful people as possible of her coming. She would find ways to stall her so more people could evacuate.

She would do things differently this time.

Rain sank deeper into the darkness to recuperate, keeping one eye half open so that she could track their movements as their journey began anew.

The internal guerrilla warfare was about to begin.

***

“Just how we left it. Feels kind of weird knowing she’s in there.” Chara quipped, walking around the thick branches of the half dead tree out in front of Toriel’s house. She kept her hands tucked away in the pockets of their hoodie as she meandered. Now that she could remember the path properly it had taken them far less time to find their way through the catacombs this time around.

“Thank god I don’t have to listen to you two talk this time. Hmm, should we knock? I kind of feel like we are supposed to knock. Or would that just be weird since I was her kid?” She shrugged. “Oh well. Guess it doesn’t really matter. In we go!”

Toriel had left the door unlocked. It swung open without a sound. The smell of something burning filled the air.

“Oh Toriel!” She sung, slipping inside and closing the door behind her. “Are you there? It’s me, Chara: back from the dead.”

The house was still. All the lights were on and there was a faint haze of smoke in the room. It made her eyes itch as she tried to wave it away to no avail.

She drummed her fingers against the nearby guardrail before moving on to explore the rest of the house. “Guess she’s late today.” They had arrived much sooner this time. They were days ahead of their old schedule so they didn’t really know what to expect as far as routine went.

In the other room the glowing embers of the fire sat nestled in their own ashes, fading in and out like old Christmas lights. There was a little metal tray in the fireplace with the charred remains of a smoking pie still on it.

She frowned. How unlike mother to forget she had something in the oven.  She wrinkled her nose at all the burnt gummy bits of snail and wondered with no small degree of annoyance if perhaps Asriel had heard Rain’s warnings after all and had taken them to heart.

She went to go collect her fire poker. She had become quite attached to the devious little thing. She would have to sharpen it again but at least this time she wouldn’t have to do it in stealth.

Her hands trembled as she reached for it, fingers curling in on themselves in their unwillingness to take it. It took a good fifteen seconds before she was able to pick it up. She could feel Rain breathing over her shoulder, frustrated.

She used her reclaimed weapon to nudge the last smoking remains of the pie into the bottom of the fireplace. Its death kicked up ash and embers.

She went to check the bedrooms. Everything looked just as it should have until she reached Toriel’s room. The dresser drawers were open and some of the books were missing. It looked like someone had gone over things in a hurry.

Her arms fell to her side in defeat. “Great.” She poked at Rain as she hurried back down the hall. “Are you happy now? Look what you did. Now we have to go find her. Probably in the snow. Ugh.”

They ran down the basement corridor, the darkness pressing in against them. All the lights had gone out. The air was stale and cold.

Possibilities ran through  Chara's mind one after the other. What would Asriel do? What would he be capable of on such short notice? How much of his memory had he retained? Would he try to collect enough LOVE and XP to counter her own? Would he race off to defeat Asgore himself and use his father’s memories to locate the human souls and regain control of the timeline? Was that even possible?

No. If he could do that he would have done so long before she had ever come along.

At the end of the day he was always the coward. The crybaby. He never had the guts to go all the way. He would get someone else to fix this problem for him.

He had not warned any of the monsters along the way here., so that was a good sign. They had fallen prey to her as easily as ever. Already her power was beginning to grow once more.

Rain now recognized that a great deal of Chara’s power came from gaining LOVE and XP and so the nagging soul had been left with a difficult choice: try and save every monster they came across, preventing Chara from gaining power and effectively stalling her, or save her limited energy to throw all her effort into saving the most important of the monsters they came across: the ones that stood the greatest chance of helping her.

Rain had made her choice right away. She had fought at every crossroads, every bridge, every puzzle and every encounter. Viciously at first. Then methodically. Wearing herself down in an attempt to stall and effectively deciding to gamble against her later when she met Toriel.

The delay she had presented them with had indeed given Toriel time to escape but now Rain was exhausted and Chara had still managed to gain some power reguardless. 

When they reached the end of the hall and the great stone door stood before them, Chara breathed a small sigh of relief that turned into a groan. She had been afraid that Asriel would convince Toriel to collapse the room again and cause them further problems but it looked like that had not been the case. He had however, encased the doorway in several feet of thick, thorny vines; all gnarled and knotted.

“Damnit Asriel.” Chara muttered. She just wanted to get out of this hell hole. She wanted to escape from the pages of this cruel story and find a place where everything was quiet. Why did everyone have to make that goal so difficult?

The thorns snagged on her sleeves as she began the monotonous task of cutting through the vines with the sharpened edge of her spear. By the time she had freed up the door enough to shove it open she was drenched in sweat; hair and clothes plastered against her skin.

She took a moment to catch her breath and massage her burning muscles. The call of the cooling blizzard waiting just on the other side of the door gave her the encouragement needed to untangle the last of the clinging vines and push the door open.

A cold wind pushed through to greet her, bringing flurries in to dance around her head and snag in her eyelashes. She pushed through the opening and awkwardly stumbled out into the snow, enjoying the cold on her skin. She scanned the area, wary of prying eyes. There was a massive set of footprints in the snow, still fresh enough to only have a faint dusting of fresh snow in them.

Toriel.

The boss monster was heading in the only direction she could really go at this point: Snowdin. So that was the direction Chara took her march in.

Rain stirred within her, her presence circling. Alert and searching for the presence of anyone other than themselves.

Chara tried to spy on her emotions, waiting for them to flare up and act as an early warning in case anyone tried to sneak up on them. But Rain seemed to be starting to get the hang of their shared body and separate minds. She did a decent job of hiding herself in the white swirling mist of her own secrecy.

It wasn’t until they neared the bridge with too-wide bars standing as its sentry that they began to hear something: the soft crunch of footsteps sinking into the snow.

Chara spun around; weapon at the ready. But no one was there.

She continued onward, wary of every sound as she followed the footprints and crept closer to the bridge. She could see a sentry station off in the distance now. Would Sans be there?

Her lip twitched at the thought of him. He was lazy. His body was weak. If she could get the jump on the sneaky bastard early on she may be able to get rid of him before he ever had the chance to be a problem.

The only issue was that she wasn’t sure where everyone was anymore. During their first run they had spent days in the Ruins, so she was making this entire trek ahead of their previous schedule. Everyone would be in different places this time.

Her train of thought was soon halted by the returning sound of footsteps.

She stopped and looked over her shoulder again. Still no one. “Hello?” She called out, scanning the spaces in-between the trees, looking for footprints. She could feel Rain’s anticipation pressing up against the boundaries of her secretive fog. She knew who it was but despite Chara’s attempt to pull the answer from her, she managed to keep it just out of reach.

She shook herself and continued on, biting her tongue as she went. Whoever it was, Rain would try and warn them. Chara couldn’t allow Rain a chance to say anything.

The footsteps came back. Slow and methodical in their approach. This time she did not turn around to look. She waited by the bridge and focused on denying Rain the ability to speak.

An all too familiar voice greeted her at last. The voice of someone she wished had stayed dead.

“human, don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! ok there we go. back on track! sorry it took this long! D: I had to take care of (16) day-old baby birbs and me and my sister had some minor health problems that got in the way. (also known as The Dreaded Duck Incident. *shakes fist*)  
> ((Also it took a long time to draw this >_>)) I was hoping to get this up for the anniversary but I missed it. v.v but we are back now! Hope you enjoy and thank you so much for reading!


	22. Praise be our flatulent savior/may he burn in hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Praise be our flatulent savior~~ / **may he burn in hell**
> 
> Everyone hits a little snag.

They both took in a sharp breath. Chara’s eye twitched. He _would_ be the first person she would meet on this side gate, wouldn’t he? She bit down on her own tongue until she tasted blood, feeling Rain bunch herself up for some sort of revolt despite how tired she was.

“turn around and shake my hand.” He instructed.

They could feel his eyes boring into their back, right between their shoulder blades.

How much did he know? How much did he remember? How much had he been told?

Taking comfort in the cool steel in her hand, Chara slowly turned around and did as she was told.

It was strange seeing his left eye without the blue glow. Yet still it was easy to see that something was troubling him. He was watching her with a careful expression. He still had his hand held out to her in expectation. The little embers of light inside his skull glanced between his hand and her eyes. “c’mon lady, don’t leave me hangin.” He pleaded.

Rain was strangely quiet.

Chara took his hand, brow furrowed ever so slightly. He relaxed a bit when the hidden whoopee cushion went off. His shoulders slackened, the light in his eyes looking relieved. He laughed, sounding perhaps just a little bit nervous. “the ol whoopee cushion in the hand trick. it’s always funny.” He looked down at their hands, feeling Chara’s grip tighten. “that uh, that’s your queue to laugh.”

Her other hand came racing up, newly sharpened spear cutting through the wind. She yanked him towards her, her grip an iron vice.

His relief shattered into panic, his eye turning that too-familiar blue.

Adrenaline raced through her veins, heart leaping at the thought of such an easy triumph. But when she meant to drive her weapon forward and strike him down, instead her arm just _kept_ _arcing backwards_.

She looked at her arm in confusion, watching it shoot high above her head; that one impossible second of error seeming to slow down in time so that she could enjoy every frustrating moment of it. Rain’s rebellion hit her too hard and too fast for her to salvage anything from it. Her fingers were pulled free of her weapon at the height of her rouge arm’s arc and she felt the cool steel slide from her hand.  She watched out of the corner of her eye as it cartwheeled overhead and out of reach. It bounced off of the wooden bars of the ineffective gate, chimed against a nearby stone and tumbled away into the dark ravine beyond.

When her eyes snapped back to Sans she was no longer holding on to his hand, he was gripping hers.

With a look both cruel and unforgiving he pulled her forward, sidestepping  with  one leg lifted at an awkward height to avoid a single bone lance that shot up through the snow behind him right as she was pulled into its path and skewered. Several more attacks shot up around her as Sans stepped away. The strikes were nearly simultaneous.

No longer able to support her own weight, Chara slid further down into the jagged maw of cold spines.

Sans was looking down at her, hands in his pockets and a sad haunted look on his face.  He sighed, looking rather deflated. His eyes never left their body as the world began to fade. It didn’t even hurt that much to be honest. She just felt…numb.

“sorry tori. i didn’t want him to be right about any of this either.”

***

The vines were back. She had forgotten to make a proper save once she had opened the door. She cursed at the deaf face of the carved obsidian while Rain drifted about their mind in lazy, smug circles.

She was enjoying her little victory, reliving the memory over and over again while she tried to regain some of her strength.  Her smug emotions radiated through their mind in waves.

“Shut up. I will get him this time. You didn’t save them, you just prolonged things a little.”

_“The look on our face when you dropped the poker was priceless.”_

 “Don’t make me punish you.” She warned, hacking away at the vines with vicious swings.

_“You don’t have anything to punish me with. What are you going to do? Stab me? You can’t hurt me without needlessly hurting yourself.”_

Chara bit down on her reply. For now she would just have to tolerate her smugness. Rain would get what she deserved in good time.

Knowing that Sans was still alive- having actually seen him standing on his own two feet again- had given Rain hope. Knowing that Toriel was still out there somewhere, Papyrus was blessedly oblivious to her past transgressions and Undyne was still the guardian of the glowing waterfalls made Rain's current situation a little easier to live with. Hell, even the thought that Mettaton was still running around Hotland on his one obnoxious wheel filled Rain with the faint light of cautious Determination.

According to Rain, there was still time to find a way to fix all this.  

And that little spark of hope had gotten Rain thinking. She was trying to figure things out and Chara didn’t like it. Things Chara did her best to hide from her. 

So long as Sans still stood, there was hope. So long as he acted like a proper sentry and refused them passage Rain would have a reason to fight.

That knowledge ate at the back of Chara’s mind like a persistent rat. Right here, near the beginning, this was when she was most vulnerable. She was stronger than before because she was fully awake now but until she gained enough XP and LV to properly overpower Rain again the two of them were going to perpetually butt heads. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do to help fix that problem aside from just continuing to push herself forward.

So this time when she cut through the vines and shoved the door open, she made sure to make a proper save point. Then she poked her nose around the corner, checking every shadow and under every snow-laden evergreen for signs of Sans as she crept back out into the cold.

This time when she heard the soft sound of him moving through the snow she made sure to keep an iron grip on her weapon and waited for him a safe distance away from the bridge and its ravine. Only this time she was so focused on making sure Rain didn’t throw away her weapon that she was not prepared to stop her from screaming.

 “I reset and I’m going to kill you this time, Sans! I’m going to kill everyone all over again!” She shouted, hot breath causing a cloud of fog to rise up from their lips.

Chara glued their jaw shut and looked around wildly, wondering if Sans had indeed heard them despite not having revealed himself yet.

…He had.

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

 “Stop it!”

_“Bite me.”_

 “Why are you still defending them? If you let them live they will still just take your soul in the end. Take it, use it, discard it like so much worthless trash! That’s all they want. That’s all any of them want! You don’t really matter to them. Why can’t you see that? People will only ever befriend you because you’re useful. You are just a means to an end!”

_“Hypocrite.”_

For some reason, that hurt. She didn’t really know why. 

Back in the dark basement of Toriel’s house, she yanked the door open again, pulling against the feeble grasp of mutilated vines. She ran out into the snow, now annoyed by the cold that she had once welcomed. She hurried back to their meeting point; cursing every step for how long it took. She bit her tongue and held her weapon close this time as she waited with her back to the path; gaze looking out past the too-wide wooden bars in front of the bridge but never quite focusing on anything in particular. He wouldn’t show up if she was looking for him. She just had to wait.

“human, turn around.”

She should have caught the change in his tone but Rain’s biting words had left her distracted. When she turned around and reached out to grasp his hand, ready to finally catch him and run him through, he was not quite where she had expected him to be.

He was a few feet back, a look of worry turning into grim conformation as soon as she revealed her weapon.

Curved bones ran right through her like she was made of little more that tissue paper and pinned her down within the familiar snowy rib cage. From under the rim of Sans’s fur-lined hood she could see only haunted disappointment. His words drifted towards her as if through thick static, growing softer and softer as the darkness came to take her away.

 “…is that any way…to greet an old pal?”

The resets were coming too close together. He was starting to become wary. He was starting to remember. 

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

She would have to try a different strategy.

He was too observant to keep tricking. For all she knew he would kill her as soon as he saw her this time. Sans was slow to action but once he was pushed to that point he did not seem to be the type to show any mercy or hesitation. 

She had to find someone else to disarm him for her. She needed something new. Something conflicting.

She looked at the prints in the snow. A few hours may have slipped by for her between the resets and having to re-cut all those vines but for the rest of the Underground not that much time had passed at all.

Would s _he_ still be nearby?

It was worth a shot.

She began to cry out, taking slow and cautious steps against the wind, each footfall pressed up against the already existing footprint of the being she had once called mother with affection instead of resentment.

“Hello? Mom?” She called, ever wary of who was surely watching her from somewhere among the near identical trees.  “Mom! Toriel? Where are you? It’s me! It’s Chara!”

She squinted through the flurries, sniffing as her nose went red. Did she dare press on towards the bridge? “I came back! I woke up! Mom? Mom!”

Rain hissed through her teeth, angered by her scheme. Her presence pressed up against her and tried to cut off her words. She tried to demand that they be quiet but her attempts to silence her only made Chara’s calls seem all the more pitiful. Her chokes sounded like coughs and sobs.

She inched along a few cautious steps at a time; moving so slow that her limbs started to go numb before she even reached the bridge. Oddly enough Sans did not appear when she did reach it. She did not hear his footsteps or see any shadows move out of the corner of her eye.

She took a cautious step out onto the bridge, tensing in anticipation for a trap. Yet there was nothing. Just the creaking of old wood gone damp and rotted by the eternal snowfall.

 “I’m so scared, mom! I woke up and I didn’t know where I was! And- and now all the monsters are trying to hurt me. Why is dad collecting souls? Why is everyone so scary?”

She was almost surprised when he showed up this time, late to the show.

“human, don’t move.” San ordered, voice sounding tired when he added: “…please.” He was behind her again. Too far away for her to attack from the sound of it.

She took a deep breath and ran, shouting as lout as she could. “Toriel! Toriel help me! Toriel! Mom! Hes after me!”

She felt cold ice reach up and touch her skin. Something shot out of the ground behind her and just narrowly missed, spraying ice everywhere in its violent upheaval.

She thought she heard a new voice call out to her from somewhere up ahead.

Yes! Up ahead a large figure with broad shoulders and a small set of horns had just stepped out of hiding among the snow laden trees.  She was hesitant at first but seemed to be approaching a little faster with every other step.

Chara continued to run, using the deep-set tracks left by her mother to help avoid some of the drawbacks of the snow.

Sans was behind her. Shouting warnings as bones continued to crop up around her like vicious weeds. “tori! no! get back! she’s an anomaly. she’s dangerous!”

“Mom, help!” Chara cried, voice going raw.

“Sans! Stop! Don’t hurt her!” Toriel begged, barreling through the snow at full speed now. Flames were growing in her open hands; the bright orange creeping up along her arms as she became more and more distraught.

“That’s her! That’s Chara! Do it, you smiley trash bag! Do it!” Another voice shrieked, high pitched and cracking with the effort of maintaining such volume.

A bone cartwheeled through the air and hit her square in the shoulder. She felt something pop as she was sent spinning into the many layers of old ice and new snow.

“No!” Toriel bellowed.

Bones rose up around her, one row after another until there was a thick barbed barricade surrounding her in a lopsided square.

She pushed herself to her knees, cradling her limp arm and wincing from the throbbing in her shoulder. It felt like it had been dislocated. She reached out to Rain, trying to snag her evasive form and pull her into place to numb the pain but she danced away, dissipating between Chara's fingers and drifting farther and farther out of reach. She was not strong enough to throw her around yet.

Chara waited for the end to come, eyes screwed shut and jaw clenched. Yet nothing happened.

“Sans you made a promise. You remember it, do you not?” Toriel asked; voice low and deadly as it trembled. It was far from the kind, mothering tone Chara had so often awoken to in the mornings once upon a time.

“Dammit Sans for once in your pitiful life do something that’s worth a damn!” Flowey commanded.

She could hear Sans standing behind her now, staring at Toriel from across his makeshift box. She could see their shuffling shapes move between the small gaps in the rows of bone. Frustrated shock and confusion came off of Rain in waves as she tried to comprehend why Sans wasn't finishing them off.

“i know, tori, i know.” He sighed.

“M-mom.” Chara squeaked, voice quavering against the pain. “Help me. It’s me. It’s Chara. It really is.”

“ _Mom_ ,” Flowey echoed in taunting, his voice going raspy, “if you get close to her, she’s gonna kill you.”

On the other side of the fence Toriel shifted. She was nervous. Uneasy. “Prove it, child.” She managed, pressing up against the bars and allowing the barbs to burrow into her fur just so she could be closer to them.

“tori…” Sans warned with a growl, pulling the interlocking bones closer together so that there was barely a gasp for them to look through. “stay back. something is wrong with this one. i don’t think its human. not anymore. “

They could not see them through the bars but it was easy to tell that there were tears in Toriel’s eyes. She sucked in a shaky breath. “Its… it’s been a very strange day. I would not even think to believe you if I had not learned of the true fate of my son mere hours ago and…My child, please, prove to me that you are telling the truth. Prove to me that you are my Chara.”

Chara glanced at Sans through the bars of her prison, then at Toriel. She could see vines draped across her mother’s shoulders, barely out of reach of the rising flames that cling to her fur. 

“You used to bake us pies.” She finally proclaimed. “We always argued about which pie to make. I liked the one with cinnamon. Asriel always wanted butterscotch. One day, you decided to combine the two so we would both be happy.”

A hand tried to reach through the barrier. Toriel’s voice was full of pain, relief and confusion. “Chara. _My Chara!_ It _is_ you!... I am so confused, my child. I have been told so many frightening things.” The tips of her fingers made it through the gap and then stopped.

Toriel gasped, gripping the bones to try and hold herself in place. From the other side of the barricade the sound of vines whipping against the snow disrupted the moment. Flowey’s golden head rose high above the wall, leering down at Chara and Sans.

“Asriel, n-no! Let go! That’s your sister in there! That’s Chara!”

“I know that’s Chara, you idiot.” He rasped. “I’m the one that told you in the first place. Did you not listen when I said she would _kill_ you?”

“tori!” Sans barked, stepping forward to come to her aid.

Flowey hissed at him in warning, head rising higher and higher into the air as Toriel’s flames became more and more chaotic.

Chara bore her teeth and began to swing her spear  at the wall of bones. She was desperate to get out. Desperate to still somehow save this.

“Sans, listen very carefully to me.” Flowey warned, eyes going black.

“Shut up Asriel!” Chara shouted.

“Asriel, let me go!” Toriel begged, clawing at the snow as his vines dragged her farther and farther away.

“i’m warning you kid, let her go.”

“I am the legendary fart master.” He snapped.

On the other side of the barrier Sans lowered his arm. The glow in his eyes faded just a bit. “...what?”

“You heard me! And I know she has reset this scenario at least three times now because she couldn’t **_kill_** you!”

Chara continued to swing, splintering bones in her wake while Rain tried to slow her blows.

Sans closed his eyes. Toriel’s pleas fell upon deaf years. “i'm sorry tori, but i gotta choose the lesser of the two evils here.”

The bone walls slipped half way back into the ground, adjusted its angle, and ran Chara through.

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

_“Of course he would do that.”_ Chara bitterly mused, pulling them through the darkness once more and back to their body. _“Little Asriel **never** does anything by himself. He always has to get someone else to fight his battles for him.”_

She should have known he would strike a bargain with Sans. He had had countless resets to learn about everyone while she had slept beneath the ground. He knew everyone's strengths already. He knew their weaknesses and their secrets and their habits. They did not remember all the horrible things he had done to them but he still remembered all the strings he could pull to make them dance.

Of all the enemies she had made, her brother was quickly becoming the worst.

***

It was a losing battle after that. They never found Toriel again. Maybe Asriel had learned from that near-fatal mistake and kept her farther away from all the commotion. Maybe he just quietly killed her himself off in the silent stillness of the pines to ensure that no one else could use her power against him. Whatever the reason, she never answered Chara’s cries for help again. Instead it was Flowey who would come slithering out to greet her.

Over and over again they met Sans. Over and over again Flowey came tearing out of the woods, his shrill voice shrieking: “I am the legendary fart master! I am the legendary fart master! She reset! She reset!”

Chara was hunted down like a dog again and again. Each attempt leaving her body farther and farther back from her last point of death and closer to  the cold stone face of the Ruin’s door.

She tried to trick them, reason with them or confuse them. Sometimes her frustrated attempts even came close to working. But as the resets stacked up against her, Sans’s gullibility became all the more scarce.

She nearly had them a few times when she tried to parrot these ridiculous phrases that Sans seemed to find so important but one way or the other something always went awry.

He would demand that she give him the “other” code word. He practically begged her for it while she lay pinned down in the snow, bleeding once again. He wanted this to end. _He just wanted this to end!_ Yet she never learned the other word. Asriel kept that one to himself and would carefully whisper it to Sans from a safe distance.

Then he would kill them and the cycle would begin anew.

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

Inside her head Rain laughed bitterly at the cycle Chara’s own reckless violence had cursed her with, even though she was forced to share her suffering. She would hear Asriel coming and mentally greet him with sarcastic glee. _“Ah, our flatulent hero returns! All hail our lord and savior- the flower who farts through time!”_

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

She tried to sneak off through the trees and find a different path but Ariel was always nearby, baying like a shrill hound. Unlike Sans he was able to learn from past mistakes and keep up with her ever-changing choices.

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

_Reset._

She could feel Rain’s presence standing beside her. Eventually becoming still and silent. She watched her with something akin to pity. She rarely had to do anything to intervene now.

She said nothing as Chara marched back into the cold. The flurries that clung to her eyelashes were a nuisance now. The wind seemed to be howling with laughter and the trees whispered of past failures as they stumbled past them.

The footprints in the snow taunted her. Always the prints were waiting for her while her own continued to disappear again and again with every reset. The others had made their progress. She had not.

Rain watched her body continue to die out in the cold. In some distant part of her awareness she felt the sting of the attacks. She heard Asriel’s voice on the wind. She felt the cold ice on her skin. She watched it and wondered why this had to keep happening.

Had Chara always been this malevolent? She had obviously been a deeply troubled child in life but those who remembered her spoke fondly of her memory, even if there was a shadow to those words that they did not wish to see.

Perhaps Chara was simply mad. Who knows what terrible things had happened to her soul over the years? She had shared her soul with three others before Rain had come along and each time she had done so she had been rejected and pushed back into a dreamless sleep. Perhaps something other than her body had rotted away with time. Perhaps she had suffered a fate akin to that of her brother. Asriel had lost the ability to love, Chara had lost the ability to forgive.

Could she regain it? Probably.

Did she want to?

…No.

Rain would have been more than willing to help her if things were just a little different but she couldn’t save someone who did not want to change.

Pain.

Blood...

The darkness stretched on a little longer than usual this time.

Rain could see the abnormal form of her mental cellmate twisting through the darkness with her.

_“What’s this?”_ She asked. _  
_

_“Going back again."_

_“To the beginning?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“It won’t change anything. Flowey will still be suspicious.”_

_“Maybe. But what if all they have to remember is nothing?”_

_“Nothing?”_

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

“Howdy! I’m F-”

Pain.

Darkness.

_Reset._

Oh. Oh no.

Chara sensed her realization and grinned through the darkness. _“That’s right. He doesn’t seem to be fully immune to true resets. So what do you think will happen if we just do nothing over and over and **over** again? How long until he can’t remember the oldest timelines? How long until they will be replaced? How many pointless resets can he cling to until there is nothing left for him to remember?”_

Rain closed her eyes braced herself.

She was going to get really sick of the taste of granola down here.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

_… **Reset**. _


	23. when a sen-tree falls alone in the forest, it doesn’t make a sound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **when a sen-tree falls alone in the forest, it doesn’t make a sound**  
>  Chara breaks the mold. And something else.

What was the worst part of hell? There were so many versions to choose from. So many ironic fates to fear. The torture, the hellfire, the hopelessness. People had become quite elaborate in theirs ideas of suffering over the ages. Yet down here in her perpetually resetting hellhole, down here where she was forced to witness her body used as a weapon, down here where she had so little control… the worst thing about hell may very well have been the taste of that _fucking honey flavored granola_.

The other victims of the Underground may have seemed to be left a little off kilter by Chara’s new strategy of basically spamming the world with constant resets but it left Rain feeling downright nauseous. The world was always spinning. She felt the same pain over and over again until it just became an annoying pattern to be ignored. Her eyes danced around in her head, they stumbled around a few steps, threw up, caught their breath, then did it all again.

She tried to come up with new ways of fighting back during this chaos. She attempted to drag her heels in the darkness to keep Chara from returning. She brawled with her through the void in an attempt to regain control when they fell back into existence. She tried smothering her in smoke to choke her memory- something she had learned from Chara herself- and even tried to trap her in a dream; desperately hoping that that was what the other souls had been trying to do when Chara had fled. Yet none of it worked. It didn’t even slow her down. She just kept going.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

_Reset._

Over and over again until no one could remember.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

_Reset._

Thank god Rain eventually realized that if she burrowed down deep enough into their shared existence she could keep all of the dizzying sickness at a respectable distance. It was still there, like the persistent ringing in one’s ears, but she was getting pretty good at forcing herself to not be aware of it.

Chara didn’t stop throwing them back into the darkness until the darkness stopped being so… _empty_.

It was subtle at first. Sometimes the void  shimmered like a summer road and little cracks of _darker_ darkness could be seen at the edge of their vision. Sometimes, as they drifted past, Rain could not help but think that those cracks almost looked like the unblinking sockets of a distorted face- watching them in grinning silence.

Eventually it became too unnerving for the both of them and they finally stopped.

It was then, while throwing up their breakfast yet _again,_ that for the first time in a long time they reached a unanimous agreement with one another: **never** eat anything resembling granola _ever_ again under pain of death.

The room was spinning so fast they could barely move. They just rolled around in the weeds clutching their stomach and coughing. Everything was an ugly, uneven blur that could reverse direction on them at any given moment, causing them to groan and squeeze their eyes shut all the tighter against the nausea. Yet still it was preferable to the unblinking gaze of the void.

Flowey must have still had some vague sort of hunch that something was up because after the first two or three resets he had stopped showing up again. But apparently that did not mean that he had left; only that he had remained in hiding. And regardless of said hunches, his memory had indeed been wiped clean and the sight of a feeble, groaning human soon proved too tempting for him to resist.

“Howdy! What’cha doing rolling around on the ground like that?” He chirped, appearing from his designated spot when Rain and Chara failed to get up and wander over to his location on their own like they usually did.

He didn’t give them his big spiel about gaining LOVE or showing them the ropes this time so they ignored him while they continued to try and get the room to stop spinning. It took all of their combined effort just to keep from gagging again.

“Golly, you sure look like you’ve had it rough! Are you ok, buddy? Why don’t you come on over here and lil ol Flowey can lend you a hand.”

Chara rolled her eyes. Flowers didn’t have hands.

 _“Isn’t he going to eventually shoot us?”_ Rain wondered.

_“Probably.”_

They tried to get up, felt the world shift underneath them, and collapsed back onto their belly.  They both knew that they needed to take action against both Flowey and each other soon but they just… they needed a minute first.

“Hey, buddy, you listening?” Flowey huffed, patience growing thin. “It’s not very nice to ignore me.” His high pitched voice was going raw and demonic. Behind them they heard the rustling of plants being pushed aside. The familiar sounds of vines scraping and sliding across the earth warned them of his approach.

In the blink of an eye several layers of vines snapped down around them, dragging them through the mud with no small degree of roughness. “On second thought,” he chuckled, “go right ahead! Ignore me! Closes your eyes. Pretend this is all just a bad dream! Call out for help if you want. Go on, cry.” The vines constricted, small thorns biting into their skin. Chara struggled against his tightening grip. “No, no, it’s alright. Don’t get up.” He chided, blossom face dipping down to look at them. “This makes my job so much easier!” There were bullets forming in the air above them, shimmering in the faint light.

Rain waited for them to fall, content in the idea of just letting Flowey win, however short lived that victory would be.

Chara freed her hands, enduring the scrapes and reaching out to snag Flowey by the head.

He jerked back in surprise, recognizing something familiar in her dark eyes.  His vines flailed and tried to push her back. He tried to wrench her arms away as her fingernails dug deeper into his face.

“What are you doing? Let go!” Some of the bullets bit into them, making scores in their arms. But it did not cause Chara to release him.

“You’re right. This _was_ easier.”  Chara commended.

Rain flinched in surprise, realizing all too late that she had miscalculated. She rushed to the surface to fight for control, to try and stop the inevitable from happening. But it was too late. The petals tore. The stem snapped and the vines went limp, their dead weight clinging to her body for a few short moments before they began to wither and fade.

Rain’s movements slowed to a halt. She had still been trying to catch her breath. She had thought Chara was too sick to do anything. She thought Flowey was going to win. She stared out from behind her eyes in numb shock as withered petals fell in her lap.

She had lost. 

Chara sighed, rolling onto her back and tossing the petals up in the air overhead so that they could engage in a short dance with the falling raindrops before settling in around them once more. “Well, that sure was a lot easier than before. Are you still going to fight me? Now that he’s gone? They won’t get a warning this time.”

Rained shifted uncomfortably within their mind, tired and unsure of herself. _“Then I will have to be their warning.”_

Chara rolled her eyes and pushed herself up onto wobbly feet. “Fine. Have it your way. Here we go again.”

***

Rain was very good at screwing things up. Chara made sure to remind her of this. She had fought and she fought and she fought until she was worn out.

Chara used the Ruins as her hunting grounds. She was determined to find any wayward monster she could and strike them down so that their single drop of power could be added to her own.

If Rain let her kill then she would become harder and harder to fight back against in the long run but if she tried to save every monster they encountered, then she would wear herself out.  In the end it had not been a situation Rain could win. Chara taunted her with every monster she failed to save and slowly wore her down.

She did not want Rain causing extra trouble when they met Sans so she had adopted the simple strategy of letting Rain pick her poison and then drowning her in it. If she wanted to save everyone, Chara would let her try until she was too worn out to move or speak. If she wanted to only save those who stood a chance of stopping them, then she would move about freely and hunt down everything in sight before ever confronting one of the stronger monsters. That way even if Rain was well rested, the balance of power between the two of them would remain in Chara’s favor.

Because of this, when poor, kind Toriel found them at last all caked in dust and waiting for her outside her own home, there was little Rain could do to save her.

She cried out in desperation but her words never made it past the walls of her mind. Her soul was a cloud of burning lights and arcing fog that clawed against the black smoke that smothered her. She ran herself ragged trying to save Toriel, reaching out against her growing constraints to try and do something to salvage a run that had gone off the rails the moment Flowey had died.

Chara let her struggle. Good. Let her waste the last of her energy now.  Let her soft heart lead her off on a fool’s errand. She was trying too hard to play the hero when she should have been playing the strategist.

Three resets worth of delays later and it was over.  Toriel was dead.

Chara tried in vain to catch her mother’s quavering soul but it broke too fast, leaving Chara with arms held up towards the broken light and her lips stretched thin in knowing disappointment while Rain stared on in defeat.

It was strange for Chara to see Rain fight so hard to save someone she barely knew. A stranger she had hardly even understood.

Just as Chara was willing to do whatever it took to erase all remnants of the memories that clung to her like scars, Rain seemed desperate to save everyone and everything despite the cost such a struggle inflicted upon her. In a vague sort of way, like remembering a dream, Chara believed she could have once understood this desire. Yet she had chosen to discard the parts of herself that Rain’s own soul seemed so desperate to cling too.

That was fine. In the end Rain would let go too. Just like Chara had. She would eventually find peace in the silence they had made. She would one day understand that trying to care for these people only resulted in being given memories that were too painful to visit.

Chara went around the house and collected her usual things after her victory. She looked at herself in the mirror and examined the light grays and whites of dust in her hair.  It looked like resetting had given back the fiery red color again but it was already fading fast. How curious.

There were no vines to block the door when they turned to leave this time. There were no awaiting footprints in the snow when they stepped out into the snow. The silence felt good. If it wasn’t for the cold wind one could stand out there among the trees with their eyes closed and forget the world even existed.

Chara wondered if Sans would still be out on patrol today. Or would he be off sleeping somewhere now that Asriel was not there to stir up trouble?

Rain was an annoying weight in her shoes as they slogged through the snow. She was in a weary panic. She was no doubt trying to think of a way to save him.

As they approached the sentry station the familiar sound of footsteps broke the relative silence of the ice-flecked wind. Rain fought for control, grasping at her hands, her voice, her legs- anything. _Scream! Run! Drop the weapon!_ The ideas bounced around in their head in a wordless, primal way. _Remember. Remember! Remember us!_ _Fight us! Stop us!_ But Rain was too worn out to do anything. Chara had too much LOVE.

The footsteps stopped in front of them with a heavy crunch.

The two souls remained frozen in place, their back turned to Sans and their body held at attention while inside their mind the two entities chased each other round and round in exhausting circles, like the sun chasing the moon.

Sans’s voice seemed heavier than usual when he finally spoke. More worn out. “human, turn around. don’t… don’t you know how to greet a new pal?”

He remembered something. But not enough.

Their whole body shook. Screams clawed their way up their throat but died behind their lips. Their fingernails  dug into their own skin as their hands spasmed. Their knees wobbled, perpetually on the edge of giving out. The two beings fought on in a storm of thunder only they could hear.

Their stillness worried him. “uh, hello?”

_“No, no, no, no! Sans! Fight her! Fight her!” Do you job! Why wont you do your job!"  
_

Ever so slowly, their body shuffled around to meet him. There were deep shadows etched under his eyes and in the corners of his mouth. Perhaps out of hope, perhaps out of habit, as always, he was holding a boney hand out to greet them.

Their arm trembled as they took his hand. His boney fingers brushed against their bare skin. His hand seemed to be the warmer of the two.

The stress lines and shadows against his skull relaxed a little bit. “there we go. see?  i’m not so bad. nice to meet you. my name is sans. sans the skeleton. you're a human, right?”

Chara frowned, looking down at their hand in confusion when no childish farting noise greeted them.

He took notice of her look. “what’s the matter? never shook hands with a skeleton before?”

“I was expecting a joke.” Chara admitted, her other hand tucked behind her back so that he could not see the odd bulge of the fire iron in her sleeve.

“a joke?” His shoulders seemed to tense a little. He looked at them with a wary eye.

“Yeah.” She blinked at her own stupidity and quickly added, “Tthe lady in the Ruins said you like to greet people with jokes.”

He relaxed again and laughed. “oh. so you are friends with the ol' lady, huh?” He shrugged. “ sorry, just wasn’t feeling it today.”

Their lips twitched as Rain tried to scream. Chara turned it into a smile. “Want me to tell you a joke instead then?”

His expression brightened a little. His stance became a little less guarded. He didn’t seem to notice that she was still holding his hand.  “eh, sure. what the hell, go for it.”

“Knock, knock.”

“whose there?”               

_“No! Sans! Run! Run!”_

Chara smiled, tilting her head and swallowing the screams.

He frowned at her amused silence. “uuh…?”

Her grip tightened against his. The fire iron slipped out of her sleeve as she yanked him forward, using his own momentum to drive its cutting edge against his ribs in an arc that mirrored the knife strike that had once ended their fight in the judgement hall.

“Oh, sorry!” Chara chirped, smile turning into a maniac grin.

His eye turned blue. He grunted in pain, hand going up to the strike.

_Flicker._

The world around them shifted, going dark for a second. Yet she refused to let go when he attempted to teleport and ended up being carried off with him, reappearing a few yards back, against the tree line.

“That should have been _mercy_!” She spat.

He tried to summon something as he clung to consciousness, a warm red painting the snow around him as he staggered. He tried to stop her despite his vision going fuzzy but the attack went wide.

She twisted the poker so that it snagged between his ribs and used it to yank him towards her, letting go of his hand and catching him by the skull. She shoved him head first into the trunk of a nearby tree with a loud crack. The flames in his eye guttered. He gasped, a large spiderweb of cracks running up the left side of his skull. He slid to the ground, blind eyes never leaving hers.

She could feel Rain’s hot tears against her cold skin again. She also felt her power increase.

With that newfound power, in Rain’s greatest moment of despair Chara locked her soul away in her own mournful darkness and whispered: “But nobody came.”

 

 


	24. Rest In Spaghetti Never Forgetti

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Rest In Spaghetti Never Forgetti**
> 
> Papyrus must step up to the plate now that Sans is gone. Will his more active involvement be enough to stop the fallen human?

He could not have imagined that one could feel so numb and hollowed out as this while also feeling so heavy that it hurt to stand. Yet here he was; numb, confused and still standing. He had finally left the cold of Snowdin, with no small degree of reluctance, upon the desperate order of his close friend and teacher, Undyne.

It had only been a few days since he had found out about the tragedy that had turned his life upside down but it felt like an entire lifetime was clinging to his shoulders now.

Why? 

Why of all days, of all people, of all places... why had his brother chosen to take his job seriously on the one day that a human arrived on his route?

He had been acting strange before the incident. Papyrus knew his nightmares had gotten worse despite his brother trying to hide it from him. The night before he had- before his brother had been _murdered_ , Sans had awoken in a cold sweat and had refused to go back to sleep. The only thing that had consoled him at all had been Papyrus letting him snuggle up in his race car bed with him well into the late morning. Sans had needed reassurance that he was still there and that whatever dream he had had was not real.

They had both fallen somewhat ill after that. They had felt sort of dizzy and disoriented like they were about to come down with something nasty. The whole world seemed to spin and flicker for a while. Like the Underground was trying to talk over itself.

Papyrus had been sure that Sans being the lazybones that he was, would take the odd morning as an opportunity to call in sick.

Too much snow, socks too dirty, just not feeling it- those had all been excuses used to slack off or take a day off in the past. Yet on that day… that horrible, fateful day… despite not feeling well, Sans had insisted that he needed to get to his station.

_“just need some fresh air s’all. time to clear my head, ya know? then I’ll be right as r…rain.”_

He had gone in early.  He had been alone.

He did not come back.

When Papyrus came to check up on him a few hours later and nag him about the shameful state of his puzzles, he was greeted by the silence of dust instead of snoring.

Papyrus closed his eyes on the memory so that his tears could not leak out. He buried his face against the soft white fur lining of his brother’s red-stained coat. It still had his smell on it. The smell of ketchup and too much time spent in Grillby’s. The smell of pine and the strange persistence of ozone. They were the smells that reminded him of home. A home which now sat empty and lightless without him.

When Papyrus had found his brother- well, what had been left of him- he had tried to find the human on his own at first. He was angry. He was hurt. But most of all he just wanted to know why. _Why?_

For some reason he did not understand, an image clung to the corners of his mind whenever he thought about the human. It was the image of a frightened face illuminated by blue in the early haze of a synthetic morning; red hair streaked with a dirty shade of white. The image became fuzzy and soon ran away from him if he tried too hard to think about it, but the scene always came with a deep seeded feeling of realization that this half-familiar face knew only fear.

It made him question his current situation. What if the human had just been scared? What if they didn’t know any better? It had to have been a mistake! Sans had always been so kind. If someone had meant him harm then surely they had been pushed to it out of a misunderstanding, right?

Maybe if he had searched just a little bit longer he could have found her before she had been able to hurt anyone else. Maybe if he had found her on his own he could have helped her leave the violent path that was unfolding before them now.

But when Alphys had checked her cameras to see why no one was checking in with their stations, she had alerted Undyne before Papyrus had had a chance to get very far in his personal search.

When Undyne reached him on the phone her desperate tone was far flung from her usual self. She had been so relieved when he had answered her. So glad that he was alive. So angry about what had happened to Sans.

She had ordered him to go back to Snowdin and help the remnants of the already decimated canine unit evacuate the townsfolk, then take the last boat out to Waterfall to meet up and give her his report. She was so busy evacuating Waterfall and juggling updates from Alphys that it had delayed her arrival.

The human arrived in town shortly after Papyrus had boarded the ferry. The remaining forces of the canine unit made their final stand in the snow without him.

He had not been there to help them. He had not been there to support his neighbors.

 Maybe if he had been, he could have talked the human out of killing everyone. Maybe he could have made them understand.

In the back of his mind he knew all too well that Undyne had called him out to give that report because she had not wanted him there when the human arrived.

Sure, he wasn’t an official member of the Royal Guard yet. He was still a civilian that she wanted to evacuate.  But it weighed heavy upon his chest when she tried to pull him away from the action as if he wouldn’t catch on to her scheme.

But by now, several days into the chaos, she was grudgingly beginning to accept his stubborn company. The guard was stretched too thin for her to be picky. She had even planned to give him some armor the last time their trail had lead them past her house but an emergency call had dragged them away before he could put anything on.

In any other circumstance he would have been thrilled to the point of tears at the prospect of being given an authentic Royal Guard uniform. Real armor and a real mission! He was working alongside Undyne like they were real partners at long last. Not long ago this had been his greatest dream. But now her company felt grim. The mission was an exhausting tax on his soul and the responcibility felt impossibly heavy upon his  shoulders.

The human had finished off Snowdin before Undyne could get there and had slipped into the eerie tranquility of Waterfall while their heads were still spinning.

So now her massacre continued.

It was strange to see so much dust. It was strange to think that those piles of chalk and ash had once been people he had known. It was strange that Waterfall could continue to look so peaceful while hiding such a grim truth under its curtain of reeds.

Undyne tried to shield him from it. She still tried to get him to leave from time to time. She wanted him to go hide with the rest of the monsters. But he would not. He remained by her side, and by the way her shoulders sagged in relief when he chose to remain, he knew that she took a selfish comfort in his presence.

He helped her track the human through the tall grass. They hunted her through watery caverns that mimicked rainfall and up and over steep cliffs without pause. They even stalked her through fields of echo flowers that whispered snippets of strange messages left just for them.

“Go away.”

“Please leave.”

“Papyrus…”

“I’m sorry.”

“She won’t stop.”

“She won’t _leave_!”

The words bounced off one another as they went, becoming more and more warped until all that was left was an unnerving, garbeled sort of cry that lasted too long and became more and more uneven as they went.

So far they had only managed to catch glimpses of his brother’s killer.

A flash of red and white hair dancing in the wind as they ran across a distant bridge.

A rock dislodged as the human scrambled up a steep wall and vanished into the next tunnel.

A one-sided argument that bounced off of the cavern walls until it became hard to pinpoint what direction it had come from.

Once or twice she turned to look at them from across some great distance, having just taken out a bridge or climbed something that allowed her a moment to stop and look back.

Her eyes. He could not forget her eyes. He had seen them somewhere before.

He tried to call out to her despite his grief. He tried to get her to stop. Yet always she was two steps ahead of them. Always she slipped away to go reap havoc somewhere else. It felt like she knew these caverns just as well as they did, if not better. She always managed to slip into some  barely-known crack and avoid dead ends in a way that should have been impossible.

After yet another exhausting day of fruitless pursuit, Papyrus and Undyne found themselves resting with their backs against the cavern wall. The human had evaded them once again but at least they had been able to send out a warning early enough to keep the casualties fairly low today.

If only Sans had had such a warning…

Papyrus did not realize that Undyne was talking to him until she rested a heavy hand on his shoulder and jolted him from his forlorn thoughts. “I miss him too.” She whispered.

“Why him? Why now?” He asked aloud, voice cracking.

Undyne sucked in a long breath in contemplation. “I don’t know. Why did humans ever do any of the things they have done to us? Why bother trying to understand it.” Her voice turned bitter and she rose to her feet again. “And to think, I used to think they were cool. Ugh!” She kicked a nearby echo flower, lopping its head off with her steel toed boot, sending petals flying everywhere while it echoed her words back to her in a distorted cry.

She paced back and forth a few times to burn off some of her frustrated energy before allowing herself to sit back down. She dug through her travel bag until she found something to distract herself with. She pulled the top off of a plastic container and stole a few bites of its contents before she nudged Papyrus in the arm with the Tupperware. “Here. Eat.”

He took the half empty container of cold spaghetti and did as he was told. When they had passed close to her house in their hunt she had grabbed several old containers from her kitchen to keep them going. Everything had congealed into an unappealing glob and they had no easy way of heating the leftovers up again.

Undyne stole another bite from the container and grimaced as she handed it over, far from enthusiastic about having to eat something cold.  “Ugh. Nasty. And this used to be a really good batch too.” Next she pulled out a long black cylinder from her pack. Her armor made a loud symphony of clanks and creaks as she moved around.  “Want some tea?” She pushed a button, twisted the cylinder’s cap and gave it a vigorous shake. “It’s a gift from Alphys. Warms the water right up.”

Sure enough when she eventually unscrewed the lid an inviting plume of steam rose up to greet her along with the familiar smell of golden flower tea.

“Sure, Undyne. Thanks.” Papyrus said softly, setting the cold spaghetti aside and leaning over to take the offered lid.

Undyne paused, glaring down at the cylinder as if it had just said something cheeky. “Maybe I could have used this to heat up the spaghetti instead.”

“It’s ok. I don’t feel very hungry anyway.”

“I don’t care if don’t _feel_ hungry. You have been running around with me all week! You gotta eat, Paps. We have to keep our strength up for when the human comes.” She pulled a small flask out of her bag and poured a little of its liquid into the cylinder before taking a swig.

Papyrus eyed the flask with a sheepish curiosity. “Whats that? Can I have some too?” He held out his cup in expectation.

Undyne looked at him from over the edge of her drink then glanced at the flask in her hand. “Uhhh. I don’t know.” Her cheeks flushed with guilt. There were two things she tried to avoid doing around Papyrus: swearing and drinking.  He had already heard her cussing up a storm the other day; even worse it had happened in a field of echo flowers. Dare she go two-for-two? “I mean, are you sure you can take it?”

“It’s just a little, isn’t it?”                                                      

She chewed her lip. “Well, I guess? If you want? Just don’t tell your bro-” She choked on the word and they both made awkward eye contact over the rim of his cup.

She poured a generous amount into his tea. “Oook! Here we go!  Extra helping for the future Royal Guard if you forget I said that. God, I’m so sorry.”

“Nyeheh.” He laughed, looking down at the cup and forcing a smile. “It’s- its ok, Undyne... I keep doing it too.” He admitted before taking a test sip. He decided he didn’t really like it but he drank it anyway to avoid offending her odd tastes. It would have been better if she had had some lemon and honey on hand.

Undyne’s gloves creaked against her cylinder. She took a long gulp despite the water still being scalding hot then set it aside before she could accidentally dent it with her iron grip. She still ended up slamming it down against the stone harder than she meant to, causing her to grimace at the thought of possibly damaging Alphys’s gift.

“We will catch her, Papyrus. I promise. We will make her pay for what she has done to all our friends. She can’t run forever.”

Papyrus tapped his phalanges against the side of his cup in thought. “Undyne…what if… what if we could get her to stop without having to hurt her?”

Had she still been drinking, Undyne would have done a spit take. Regardless, she still made a strangled sound of displeasure. “Papyrus! Do you even hear yourself? That human- no- that _thing_ \- just mowed down half my guard and has killed dozens of our friends! She killed your brother in cold blood! And you still want to show that thing _mercy_?”

Papyrus ducked his head and set down his drink. His hands went up to the stained coat he had tied around his waist. “I’m just trying to think  of a reason why someone would do something like this.”

He narrowed his eyes. There was that phantom image again. A frightened human crouched in the snow, illuminated by blue. He tried to focus in on her but the vision was already gone, leaving behind nothing but a few fuzzy words to bounce around in his skull. “ _You don’t get it do you? They will kill me!”_

He tapped his teeth together in worried thought. “Maybe the human is scared. Maybe She just needs someone to help her remember to be good again.”

“Be good again? _Again_? Papyrus, I don’t think there was ever an ‘again’ with that thing! She has killed every chance shes got! Even if she could change, it wouldn’t make up for the fact that she has hurt people. Asgore still needs a seventh soul and to be honest I am looking forward to bringing him this one.” She spat, her yellow eye glaring daggers. “The least she can do to make up for all this is set the rest of us free.” The fire in her voice died down and she looked at the ground between her feet, drawing her knees a little closer. “Papyrus, I am going to have to fight this thing sooner or later. She may have been able to run and hide for the past few days but her luck will run out eventually.”

Papyrus tilted his head and put a hand on her shoulder. “Undyne, are you scared?”

In a flash she straightened up and flashed him a toothy grin. “Me? Scared? Hah! Of course not! I will run that whelp clean through!” She lied, grinning all the wider. When the remnants of some fogy half-memory stirred a phantom pain in her chest, she hid her discomfort. “But Papyrus, if you can’t promise me that you will do your absolute best to stop her- to _kill_ her- then I am going to have to send you away.”

“Undyne I-”

“I mean it. I will  tie you up and float you down the river if I have to. I’m not going to let her hurt you.” The confidant grin was slipping from her face now; replaced by something far more haunted.  “Don’t you get it?” She croaked, “If you had been in your brother’s place, if I had let you stay in Snowdin… she would have killed you too. I just know it. Hell, you shouldn’t even be _here_! You should be with Alphys, seeking refuge!

“But between half the guard already gone and the rest of them working evac and blocvades, things are stretched pretty damn thin out here. I need to know I've got someone I can trust watching my back. But if this is too much for you, I promise I won’t think any less of you if you need to back out.”

Papyrus’s eyes fell and he took in a long, slow breath. He was rubbing the fur lining of his brother’s coat between his fingers again. He had been doing that a lot lately. “No, I-I will go with you. I want to be there. I know you are very strong and brave and smart- but just in case you _do_ need me, I should be there!”  His voice fell into a whisper. “It’s already bad enough that I wasn’t there for him.”

Undyne’s fins drooped. She leaned over and gave him a hug, resting her chin against his shoulder. She felt tears pricking at her eyes but she pushed them away and the heat of anger soon rose up in her chest to replace them. She would make the human _pay_ for this. “I know Paps. I know.”

***

They stayed like that for a while. It was nice to have the company. It had been a long and draining week for everyone.

They both understood how dangerous this situation was going to be for each other. Even if Undyne tried to hide it, Papyrus knew she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to beat the human on her own. She was also worried that something would happen and he would get hurt if she asked for help. If he did, in her eyes it would be her fault. The thought had been keeping her visibly on edge all week. 

She hadn’t said anything to Papyrus about it, but some half-lived memory she didn’t understand was making her feel queasy.

At least if she did things this way she could keep an eye on him. Otherwise she wouldn’t put it past him to go running off on his own again.

Besides, this was what she had been training him for. He really was quite strong. People always seemed to underestimate him because of his cheery nature. They dismissed him because he acted so silly but not once had he complained or faltered since he had joined her in the hunt. Not once had he slowed her down or questioned her orders- so long as she did not try to command him to leave.

She just hoped that when it really came down to it, he would be able to stomach what had to be done. Sans’s murder had brought out a side of him she had never seen before. It was solemn and stoic. It was serious. Yet he still had these unrealistic ideas of mercy that worried her. Even in his greatest moments of grief he still cried out for understanding instead of vengeance.

She knew she should send him away but he wouldn’t leave and she couldn’t afford to turn away a willing and able fighter. Not with so much on the line. It tore at her heart.

Their moment of peace was disrupted by a phone call. Just like that Undyne snapped back into her role as the Captain of the Royal Guard. She was up on her feet in an instant.

It was Alphys, calling from the lab.

“Hold on. I need to take this.” She nodded at the nearly forgotten container of spaghetti. “And eat up, will you? I don’t need you passing out on me while we are running around. I want that thing gone when I get back.” _Because then I won’t have to eat it._ She mentally added before stepping away to answer the call.

“Alphys, please tell me you got something.”

Alphys responded with a surprising amount of self-confidence. “Actually, I do.” The sound of her fingers flying across a keyboard rattled through the phone. “The human is close to your location. S-shes in Gerson’s shop. She triggered the alarm.”

Undyne tensed. “And Gerson?”

“He’s alive. F-for now. She’s hit the magical barrier protecting his counter a few times but its holding. He won’t come out from behind it. I-I think he’s _mocking_ her!”

Undyne rubbed her temple and muttered under her breath. “Dammit old man.” She had told him to leave with the others but he had wanted to stay behind to offer temporary refuge to stragglers. And knowing him he was indeed mocking the human; trying to get her to stick around long enough to get caught, even if it came at his own expense. For someone who claimed to have retired from being a war hero he sure still liked laughing in the face of death.

“Alright, thanks. I will be right over. Keep me updated on her movements. And Alphys-” She wanted to say something to her, knowing that she may not get a chance to talk to her again, but the words died in her throat. Her fins wilted and she made a face that sat somewhere between a smile and a grimace.

“Yes, Undyne?”

No. Best not to say anything. If things went wrong it would just make it harder on her. She thought of something else to say to cover the awkward pause. “Pop some popcorn or something, ok? Cause you’re going to be in for one hell of a show.”

 She thought of poor Papyrus, clinging to his brothers coat. She thought of Sans’s dust left in the snow. She thought of her Canine unit, their laughter once filling the bar- never to be heard again. She thought of all the people the human had killed and the air around her crackled with magic as her hands turned to fists. “That human is about to get her ass handed to her.”

She hung up and marched back over to Papyrus. He had eaten all the spaghetti and was still sitting where she had left him. He had untied the coat from around his waist and had it draped over his knees.  He was reading over a folded piece of paper that he held pinched in his trembling hands.

That was new. She hadn’t seen that note before.

His jaw quivered as he read the scrawl and he dabbed at his eyes with the back of one gloved hand.

Unfortunately she did not have time to ask him what it was he had found. “We gotta move. Gerson’s got the human distracted over by his shop.” She put her phone away and did a once over of herself. She had all the necessities still on her. Whatever they had unpacked for lunch could be left where it was and retrieved later.

Papyrus looked up with a start, hopping to his feet and re-tying the arms of the coat around his waist. “Oh dear! Is he ok?”

“For now. But he won’t be if we don’t move.” Undyne broke into a run.

Papyrus took great care in refolding the letter and tucked it into one of the coat’s pockets. He was in already mid stride behind her by the time the letter had been hidden from sight once more.

“Listen Paps, I want you to stay behind me at all times, ok? Never go to the front and attack her head on. I need you to be my support and watch my back.”

“I understand.”

Her armor rattled with every stride, the weeds bowing to their passage. Muddy water splashed up around them and painted their shins brown as they raced on.

“And if you do well, when this is all over we can have a proper initiation ceremony for you. I think that after all you have done for the Underground, you deserve to be a real member of the Royal Guard. You have really proved yourself this week. So stay alive and stay frosty, ok?” She barked over her shoulder.

Such a promise should have made him light headed with giddiness. But instead Papyrus just gave her a solemn nod, his shoulders sagging like like each word was  a new, inky black weight settling in upon his shoulders. He had wanted to join the guard so he could help people, not avenge them. Maybe he didn't want this anymore. But he understood that it would be selfish of him not to agree. Not when Undyne had already lost so many.

 Papyrus’s lowered his head and leaned into each step, his jaw set as he ran alongside his friend.  “I will make you proud Undyne. I promise.”


	25. the Undying belief

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **The Undying belief**
> 
>  
> 
> Will Papyrus stop believing in the human?  
> Will he do whatever it takes to stop her?

The room was dim, lit by the eerie glow of blue and white crystals that stuck out of the walls and ceiling in odd places. They cast a strange color upon the stacks of crab apples and the boxes of tea that had been left out on a nearby counter.

“Well what are you going to do now, old man?” She opened her arms wide in taunting and knocked a few things off a shelf with her spear. “I am in your shop. All your friends are gone. Are you going to try and fight me? Are you going to try and be the hero? Or will you just watch me leave so I can go kill more of your neighbors?” Chara remembered this monster. She remembered his voice and his laughter from her past life; her illusion of childhood. He used to always tell her to slow down and listen. She found him annoying. She wanted him gone.

He chuckled, head bobbing. He turned his attention to an old book full of notes and runes on the counter and held his magnifying glass over it. He didn’t even bother to look at her. “Nah. I’m no hero. Never was. Besides, one hit from you and, well…” He chuckled and turned the page. The chuckle rattled off into a depressed sigh. “But at least by talking to you I have bought enough time for some of them to escape.” He turned another page in his book. He wasn’t even looking at her. “So, you going to buy anything or just stand there? I’m warning you in advance that I’m not going to buy any of your chintzy garbage. And I’m charging you for the things you knocked over. And those crab apples you ate when you walked in!”

She was pacing in front of the counter, eyes trained on the faint shimmer of the protective barrier he was sitting behind. “If you knew what I was you wouldn’t be acting so smug.”

“And if you really were a threat to me right now, I’d already be dead.” He retorted. “I know that so long as I stay in here, you can’t touch me. So don’t act so smug. Besides, I know what you are, dear. And I have lived too long to be afraid of your kind. Humans, monsters, something else- the world will always have its shadows. But look around! Does it look like I’m afraid of the dark? Whahahah!”

She slammed her hands down on the counter. Her fingertips buzzed with static from touching the magical barrier. “You don’t get it, do you? All your runes, all your prophecies, they were about _me_. They have always been about me. I am the first to fall. The angel of death. You can taunt me now but eventually you _will_ die.”

He closed his book and slid it off to the side. He pressed his dry lips together and squinted at her in annoyance. “Well that’s the thing about prophecies and the like, isn’t it? They always make sure to be vague so that anyone looking to fulfill them can interpret things however they want. Maybe the Prophecy is about someone who comes to save us from _you_. Or maybe it’s a metaphor for people saving themselves _from_ themselves. Maybe the angel is a monster and you’re just a sad, lost soul. Or maybe it’s just a silly old thing someone carved in a rock once!”

She struck at the barrier in frustration, causing sparks to fly.

He laughed at her short temper. “Go ahead, missy! Swing away all you like. It won’t make much of a difference whether or not you get what you want here. Someone out there is going to stop you. No need for a gaudy prophecy to tell me that. People like you always go a bridge too far and fall. Someone better than yourself will strike you down.” He swayed his long wrinkled neck and scowled, bushy eyebrows knitting together. “As a matter o' fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone like that was already closer than you realized.”

Chara paused. Gerson was looking out of the shop’s entrance, expecting someone.

She lowered her hands, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t.”

He grinned a gummy smile. “I did!”

She shoved two extra crab apples into the pockets of her hoodie and stormed out. He was right; she had taken it a bridge too far.

“You didn’t think an ol' coot like myself wouldn’t have some security for his shop, did you?” He called out after her, cheery in his accomplishment.

She ran, dusty hair flying. Her eyes scanned her path and she realized just how boxed in she was. This was not the kind of place she would want to meet Undyne. Killing off Sans so early had given her a great boost to her LV but Undyne was still dangerous enough that she did not want to choose a boxed in setting when they met.

She headed towards the darkness up ahead. The area opened out into a place lit only by the glowing fungi. Even the surrounding water was nearly black, the fake stars up above becoming so sparse and distant that even their meager reflections gave off no decent light.

Her hopes of escape were soon whittled down by the persistent sounds of pursuit. On a ledge up above her a tall figure came racing out of the darkness. Her world was ignited by blue as several magical bars of light sprung up to block her path.

Boots scraped against the stone as her pursuer  skidded to a halt. A familiar voice called out to her. “Human.”

***

“Take the high path and check the route leading to Temmie Village. I will loop around and cut her off from behind. If you see her, stay the hell away from her, do you understand? Block her but do _not_ engage until I get there!”

“Right! I understand!”

“Take care of yourself, Papyrus.” They split apart, Undyne racing off down a narrow path alongside the river’s edge while Papyrus took a steep and uneven ramp up the mossy rock face that Gerson’s shop had been etched into. His mind raced in a state of blurred half resolutions. The note he had found in his brother’s coat felt impossibly heavy for a piece of paper. Its words seemed to bore a hole through his chest as he ran, eyes glowing with faint hints of orange, like embers, as he searched the ground bellow for signs of the human.

Off in the distance he could just make out Undyne’s red hair trailing behind her as she raced down her chosen path, eager to reach the other end of the stone gauntlet and trap the human once and for all. All Papyrus had to do was watch this end. All he needed to do was stay up high and block the way until she looped back around.

He felt a twinge of phantom pain in his neck and massaged the sore vertebrae with his free hand.

_“Look, you seem like a nice guy...”_

_“Papyrus, I would love to be friends with you…”_

_“C-come on. You don’t really want to fight me. Two ships passing in the night, right?”_

There were those strange thoughts again; winking in and out of existence before they were fully formed.

A flash of movement pulled him back to the present. There! The human!

She shot out of Gerson’s shop, weapon in hand and hair flying as she fled. She looked in both directions, choosing which way to run. His heart stopped when she chose his direction. With a clear certainty of where she wanted to go, she tore down the lane, cloak billowing behind her like a possessed shadow.

Papyrus redoubled his efforts, running alongside the edge of the path, occasionally having his view of the human cut off as rock formations and dips in the cavern’s wall up above blocked his view. The two entities raced towards each other, Papyrus feeling an indescribable mix of emotions surging in his bones with every step.

The ledge came to an abrupt stop. He skidded to a halt, boots kicking up loose stones. He lifted his arm, conducting several rows of glowing blue bones that wove themselves into existence. Each one thrummed with power and interlocked with one another to become a picket fence of dangerous magic as he pulled them up from the ground and blocked off the human’s escape route.

The human skidded to a halt, leaning so far back to avoid running face first into the obstacle that she nearly fell over. Somehow she managed to correct herself, spinning on her heels and pushing herself in the opposite direction in and attempt to flee.

He conjured a second row of blue, feeling tears prick at his eyes as he thought of how his brother had once taught him about blue attacks. _Just like a blue stop sign._ He thought.

He conjured a final blue shape, lopsided in its outline thanks to the unusual tax he was putting on himself by commanding so many stationary blue attacks at once. It hung there in the air, pulsing with an eerie light that lit up the area. A big neon sign for Undyne to find.

He watched the human pace her impromptu cell, her own weapon drawn. She moved like a caged animal, eyes wild and red.

He had thought that when he finally saw her face to face like this his emotions would solidify into something more absolute. He assumed he would feel what Undyne felt and he would be ready to do whatever was necessary.  He would no longer believe that this creature could do good. He would be brave enough to see her die. Everyone knew she deserved it. She had hurt so many people. Yet when he faced her at last, his anger was weighed down by an aching sadness instead of rage.

“Human, why are you doing all this?” He croaked.

 She stopped and looked up at him, thick bruised shadows hanging under her bloodshot eyes.

His hand strayed to the letter in his pocket. He pulled out its carefully folded contents and looked down at it, not quite seeing the words but remembering their meaning. He took a deep breath. “I know… I know you have done this before. Somehow. I don’t understand how or why, that was my b- my brother’s field.” He knelt down and looked into her cage with pleading eyes from atop his perch. “But human, I _remember_ you. Or at least, I think I do... Sometimes. And the person I remember was kind. I think that at one time, we even wanted to be friends?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She sniffed. Yet something in her eyes changed. For a brief moment he thought he saw something different in them. Something kind and scared and so, _so_ desperate to be seen.

His soul fluttered. Perhaps she could still be reached after all! He pressed on, glancing at the bone in the air above them and wondering how much time they had. “Did- did we do something wrong? Did I hurt you somehow? Whatever it is that happened, whatever it was that made you so angry- I’m sorry! Truly I am!”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Maybe I’m just doing this because it’s _fun_ , Papyrus. Did you ever think of that?” She was pacing the borders of her cage again; one nasty eye always trained on him while she hefted the weight of her weapon, wondering if it was worth disarming herself on a gambled throw. “I’m not worth saving. Not anymore.”

_“You don’t get it do you? They will kill me!”_

_“No! No, no, no! This isn’t what I meant to do! Papyrus, hold on! I’m so, so sorry. I only wanted to knock you off balance. I didn’t want to hurt you!”_

The memories made his eyes water, soon turning into tears. “That’s not true.” He whispered. He slid down the steep incline so that he was level with her. “I know that’s not true! Human, I remember your voice. You tried to be good once. I know you still have it in you to try again!”

There it was again. That look in her eyes. That look echoed in those memories he could never quite hold on to.

“I can see that something horrible has happened to you. You’re…you’re _hurting_! But even though you have done all these horrible things, I can see that there is still some good left in you. You just need some help breaking free of this darkness.”

She lowered her weapon and smiled, pushing her bangs out of her face. The angry lie began to melt away into amusement. “Wow. You can still actually _see_ her, can’t you? That’s impressive. Very impressive. Not even your brother believed she was still there in the end.” She covered her mouth and laughed, an unhinged giggle bubbling up between her fingers as tears tugged at the corners of her wild, tired eyes.  “She tried so hard to protect him you know. She only gave up on him when he gave up on her!”

Papyrus’s hands were shaking now. The blue bone barrier shimmered with the effort needed to maintain it in spite of everything he was feeling. Everything he was seeing. There was such a deep, horrible sadness in this creature. And yet at the same time she displayed a dangerous, cold kind of rage that caused his heart stop and his breath catch in his chest.  “Please, human- whoever you are- let’s just start over. Ok? I-I want to help you.”

“Why? I killed your brother.” She chimed. “Shouldn’t you be trying to kill me? Shouldn’t you be trying to _avenge him_? If you did, you could become the newest member of the Royal Guard! That was _so_ important to you last time, wasn’t it? She still remembers that, you know. She says she doesn’t care but I can feel her _lying_! Powerful, popular prestigious- that’s Papyrus! Right? “She sung. “So go on! Betray her again! Just like last time! Show her the real you!”

He felt the warmth of a magical heat burning in his eyes, turning the edges of his vision to amber while tears rolled down his cheekbones. He was so angry and yet still he pitied her. “I know you did. I know you killed him.” He managed through gritted teeth. “But, what good would revenge be now? You have taken away my family. My neighbors and their families too! Hurting you won’t bring them back. But you and I, we can still make new friends and help other people… can’t we?” 

She was stepping closer to the bars now, seeming interested. The blue attack was drifting apart a little as Papyrus extended a single trembling hand towards her.

There was that look in her eyes again...

“Papyrus!” Undyne shouted from somewhere farther down the gauntlet, looping back around at last. She had several spears trailing behind her as she ran. “Papyrus! No!”

“And then maybe…maybe you could go back when you feel better? Back to the beginning. Somehow. Maybe I could help you make things right again.”

“Get away from her!”

“Undyne wait, I think I can help her!” He pleaded.

Several things happened at once.

Undyne threw several of her spears, a deep terror set in her eye.

The human lunged out of the way, her own weapon in hand as she pushed herself through the blue attack. Her skin hissed and bubbled  as she screamed but still she flew forward, her own weapon in hand as she reached out to grab Papyrus.

Papyrus stepped back in surprise, eyes widening as he tried to lift up a wall of bone to block the attack but he already knew he was going to be just a little too slow.

Undyne was there at his side in a flash. An impossibly fast, imposing figure looming over the both of them. Shielding him with her own body.

The blow struck true.

***

Undyne knocked her away, sending her spiraling back into the wall of blue where she was left to reel in pain. Inside her mind a dreary Rain watched, mouth screwed shut with some bitter frustrated thought as she was tossed about in both mind and body.

The blow had been a solid strike. So vicious and so fast that it had cut clean through Undyne’s armor like it was nothing more than warm butter. Even as Chara reeled in pain she could see through her watery vision that the strike had all but cut her in half.

In truth it was shocking. After all the trouble Undyne had given her in the past, Chara had expected more from her. But this? This was what she had been running from all this time? Pathetic.

Papyrus was at Undyne’s side at once; stooping over her and trying to help pull her back to her feet. “Undyne, no!” He trembled, pulling her away from danger and setting up several defensive walls of bone as he went. He splashed into the shallows of the black pools beyond Chara’s cage as he retreated. “Oh no, Undyne, you’re hurt. Please…please get up. Don’t leave me here alone!” He begged.

“Hurt? It’s nothing.” She grunted, teeth clenched as she leaned up against him to keep from falling over. “Just a scratch, see?” She coughed, armor rattling in her effort to remain upright. “Damnit Papyrus, you should have listened!”

Chara began to push past the rows of bone, smashing her way through them one blow at a time despite the burns she had sustained. She had to finish them off.

“I-I’m sorry, Undyne. I was so sure I could do it. So sure that if someone just offered to help her she would be able to be a better person.” The light in his eyes was like fire as he positioned himself in front of his injured friend and tried to help her to her feet. “I thought… I could help her this time.”

Undyne closed her eyes. Her whole body was shimmering. For a brief moment it looked like she was going to turn to dust right then and there.

Chara sighed in exasperation as she crawled ever closer. “Why is everyone down here so stubborn? Just give up already; you are both going to die. There is no safe place for Rain to run inside her own head. There is no safe place for monsters to hide Underground. Just. Give. Up!”

“No…” Undyne held a hand against her chest. A milky liquid was seeping from her wound, falling from the gash and scattering into white particles of dust as it coated her glove and fell towards the ground.

“Undyne, no, save your strength. We need to get you somewhere safe.” Papyrus pleaded, raising up another barrier to bar Chara’s path as they retreated deeper into the marsh, water lapping at their shins.

Undyne held one hand up above her head and collected a spear.  She pulled herself away from Papyrus’s support and smashed it into the ground, using it as a prop to help her climb back to her full height. “No! We can’t do that, Papyrus. I may feel like at any moment I will fall into a million pieces- but I won’t use that as an excuse to run.” She glared up at Chara and sneered. “When I look at that _thing_ …  I can feel something burning deep inside my soul. A burning feeling that _won’t_ let me die.” She gave a breathy laugh, focusing on pulling herself back together. “It’s like I can feel everyone’s heart beating as one, holding me together. And for their sake, I can’t let her pass.” She shuddered again, teeth grinding against one another as she leaned heavily against Papyrus when he stepped forward to help her again. “But…Papyrus, I don’t…” she swallowed hard, “I can’t do this on my own. Will you stay and help me?” She extended her dust coated hand.

He took it, gripping it as tightly as he could while she pulled herself into an upright position. “Of course Undyne.” He promised, jaw set tight against his sadness. “I would never let you do this alone.”

Her whole body continued to shimmer, but as it did so a strange magical light began to emanate from her; changing her, mending her.  “Heh. Good... Good. Together then?” Her voice echoed.

He nodded. “Together.”

Chara stopped in her attempts to push forward as the rows of conjured bones began to dissipate on their own or slide harmlessly past her.  She looked ahead, an uneasy feeling forming in her gut. Undyne was back on her feet, eye squeezed shut in concentration. She had stopped bleeding magic and her armor had pulled itself back together.

This was new.

“That can’t be good.” She muttered.

“Human- no, _whatever_ you are… you will have to do better than _that_!” Undyne’s eye opened, revealing an unnatural blackness accented only by a slit white pupil. Behind her eyepatch an eerie light was burning, calling back memories of the Judgment Hall for Chara. Undyne’s form stopped trembling and she sneered. “Because this isn’t just about us anymore, is it? Humans, monsters, you will kill them all if we let you. So for their sake, for the sake of everyone… We. Will. Strike. You. **_Down_**!”

The black water around them erupted into a roaring floor of foaming white rapids. Several thick rows of bones as tall as their creator burst forth from the depths and marched towards Chara like solders going to war.

The hollow blackness of the false sky above them began to twinkle with the light of falling stars, each one growing and stretching in shape until they became long humming javelins arcing down from behind the open arms of their creator. They rushed forward in tight packs towards Chara, singing on the wind.

Chara threw herself to the damp floor, forcing the air out of her lungs as she dove to avoid the spears. They shot by just a few inches overhead, one even managing to tear at her cloak.

She rolled left, then right as the first row of bones came marching past, leaving her with mere inches to navigate between the two attacks.

This was not what she had expected. She had not prepared for this.

She turned to run but the way was blocked. A white wall of bleached bone sentries towered over her. 

Of course. She had forgotten that he did that. She would just have to fight her way through then.

She ran forward, shoes sloshing against the growing puddles left by the passing barricades. She may have to fight two of them now but she would only have to hit Papyrus once. She had fought them before and they were nothing compared to Sans.

Perhaps all she would need here was a new song to dance to.

Something bright began to collect in the air up ahead. Chara glanced up and her eyes widened in a jolt of shock when she came face to face with a large grinning skull. 

She dove sideways, throwing herself up against the gauntlet’s walls. With an electric roar the cannon blast devoured the empty space between the two opposing forces. Marching bones turned to ash and the air around her burned as she narrowly avoided death.

Her half blinded eyes darted around in a moment of panic before she realized the blaster must belong to Papyrus, not Sans. “He has one too?” She yelped, pressing her back up against the wall as another spear shot by.

The skull turned towards her and opened its mouth again.

“Shit!” She vaulted over the next barricade. A few seconds later the ground exploded behind her in a hail of hot, sharp stone displaced by the blast. The shockwave nearly threw her into the next oncoming attack.

By the time her vision had recovered from the glare, the skull had shimmered back into nothingness. She hurried onward, fearful that it was only a matter of time before another one appeared. She leapt over one moving barricade after another, often having to knock away flying arrows as she did so.

She had to get closer!

Undyne and Papyrus watched her from up ahead, the water around them boiling in a semi-circle of chaos, the light from Undyne’s eye flashing in rhythm to her summoning movements while Papyrus’s eyes held a flame that jumped and guttered with each new wall he summoned.

“Two against one? That’s hardly fair, Undyne!” Chara called, vaulting over a rising barricade and knocking several spears away only to fall backwards when her knees buckled against the glancing blow of a spear that she had missed. Her body hardly had time to hit the floor before the next barricade was rising up out of the soggy earth and kicking her back, rolling her across the mud and stone while a swarm of arrows harassed her every move.

“Fair? Is what you did to Sans _fair?_ Is the way you cut down my guard and their families _fair?_ Is the way you seem to know everything that will happen just before it takes place, _fair_?” Undyne roared. “You spat in the eye of the only person left in the Underground willing to show you mercy. You do not deserve _fair_!” Undyne stepped forward, throwing both hands up towards the sky and sending several yellow tinged spears her way.

Chara had pulled herself back up to her feet by now, one eye swollen shut and blood running down the side of her head. She danced between the bones, leaping over them when she could, squeezing between them when she could not. She ducked behind a rising wall, causing several of Undyne’s spears to plunge themselves into the friendly attack. They vibrated with the force of impact before crackling into nothingness, the smell of ozone and spent magic hanging heavy in the air while the rest of the glowing school of bullets sailed by overhead.

When she got up and tried to jump over the moving wall she felt Rain’s interest peak. Chara looked over her shoulder just in time to see the spears that had sailed by overhead whip back around within the tight space of the gauntlet and dart back towards her.

“Oh shi-” Two of them hit her right between the shoulder blades, causing her to tumble over the bone wall and roll through several brigades of stabbing spears that shot out of the floor and eventually knocked her into a blue attack.

The pain made her gasp involuntarily as the ground fell out from under her. She was greeted by the muddy taste of cold, black water. She had made it far enough to reach the water’s edge and had plunged right into its mysterious depths during her fumble.

She flailed, the darkness teasing her with illusions of the water’s depth. The ground underfoot was muddy and uneven, shallow enough to stand in, in some places while in others she would not have been able to touch the bottom.

Her head broke the surface, pain radiating up and down her body. She screamed in frustration, pulling herself up into the shallows and staggering forth, feeling the weight of Undyne’s spears still biting into her back.

She was almost within striking range now.

She shambled forward, breathing ragged and weapon drawn. She could feel bones rising up beneath her feet and pushing her up above the water’s surface as she ran.

She reached for Papyrus, water crashing around her and movements becoming uneven over the growing strain of remaining upright under the boiling floor.

He was not ready to block the attack when it came, but Undyne had not left his side and this attempt was something she would not allow. Her eye flared with the brilliance of a searchlight, a spear blinking into existence as she stepped forward and knocked the blow away, red fins flaring as she all but hissed her disgust. “Not this time!” She spat, once again stepping in front of her friend, planting a boot against Chara’s chest and kicking her back.

It was then that Chara realized the greatest advantage they had against her here. She had not seen it among the frothing white of the boiling rapids, but as she fell back into the inky darkness of what should have been the shallows, she knew.

The water was deep.

They were standing on a submerged platform of bone.

Papyrus took a step back, Undyne following suit. The platform moved with them, rising up out of the water while conjured bones broke  away from their main platform to pursue Chara as she floundered.

It was then that the undefined depths of the watery darkness underfoot began to glow. Several feet beneath her, points of blue began to rise up, up, up towards the surface. She froze, trying to float in place in order to avoid the burning pain of the oncoming blue attacks. The water around them boiled, the bobbing movements causing Chara to move despite her efforts. Their scream escaped in a column of bubbles.

In her mind Chara felt Rain’s jaw set to brace herself. She understood what was happening a few seconds before Chara did.

The blue passed them by and their head broke the water’s surface once more. They managed only one good gasp of air before the light of their soul became manifest in front of them; its brilliant red glowing in sharp contrast to the rest of the room. It flickered once, tendrils of blue smoke rising up out of seemingly nowhere and constricting around their heart.

“Oh no.” Chara managed to splutter.

 _“Oh yes.”_ Rain confirmed, having finally pulled herself out of her own protective plane of dreams and illusion to comment on the battle. Her presence held a dull, tired amusement within it.

They were impossibly heavy.

A new weight had been added to their chest, causing them to pitch forward.

Chara struggled, cursing as she choked back water and tried to swim to the shore. Overhead spears were falling, plunging into the darkness around her, hitting her more than once and forcing her head back underwater.

She was sinking. Deeper, deeper, deeper. She was too heavy.

She felt her feet touch the muddy floor.  The surface became a more and more abstract idea with each passing second.

Rain seemed to find some weary sort of comfort in not being able to see the surface as they gave up and died, a fuzzy dreariness overtaking them at last. _“You’re blue now. That’s his attack.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! busy day today. Glad i still managed to get this chapter in! (I raised 11 orphaned baby quail and today we the day we set them freeee! I can still hear them running around the back yard calling to each other.)


	26. It’s been a long day/And a short eternity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~it’s been a long day~~ / **And a short eternity**
> 
> Papyrus tries to convince the human they can still be good. Rain starts to wonder if Chara is right about death.

For Papyrus and Undyne, the destruction of half the Underground had taken place over the course of only a few chaotic days. To all those on the outside looking in, the human was an unstoppable whirlwind of chaos that tore through things in the blink of an eye then vanished into smoke before anyone could think to retaliate.

Truly these weeks were a nightmare to all of monster kind.

But for Rain and Chara the passage of time was much different. The days once again were stretched beyond their natural limit; smeared into a state where time was nothing more than an odd thought in the back of their mind.

This was not a nightmare for them. This was hell.

They had both come to despise each other’s Determination in their slow uphill war against themselves. Rain could not fight for long but she was getting better and better at making her short outbursts count. She was becoming less frivolous and more strategic in her attempts.

But Chara never stopped moving. She could be slowed down, yes, but _never_ stopped. She could be killed but she did not stay dead.

Again and again Rain would manage to save someone by the skin of her teeth only to have Chara reset things and try again and again and _again_ until eventually Rain was too tired to stop her. Then Chara would consume, chewing on the world like a ravenous black hole.

Thus Rain would grow all the more quiet as each rebellion cost more and more of her.

It was amusing to think that her great desire to make things right, her Determination, played a big part in kindling the flame that allowed Chara to maintain control over the timeline. Chara knew how to manipulate that Determination. Rain did not. And so long as Chara was able to keep the secret of control to herself, Rain was nothing to her.

Rain became a dull, numb thing. She began to believe that there was nothing left inside of her worth redeeming.

Where once she had wanted vengeance against those who had stolen her friend a cloudy lifetime ago, now she only hoped that those same people could somehow muster the power to stop her as well. She no longer dreamed of seeing the sun. She just wanted to stop seeing dust. She just wanted these accursed long days to end so she could sleep. Yet even that seemed like a hopeless dream.

So when Papyrus and Undyne arrived to confront them, she had been pleasantly surprised by the reprieve it brought her. For once Rain hardly had to lift a finger to stop her counterpart. Chara had managed to dig her own grave with these two. They had trapped her inside a situation that was impossible to win.

Chara tried luring Papyrus within striking range before Undyne showed up but she was always too slow. She tried throwing her spear at him but Rain would muster just enough energy to make their aim go askew, or the massive skull of Papyrus’s blaster would pull itself into existence and shield him from the blow.

If she ran the other way they would end up cornered by Undyne. Chara had set her last save point within the gauntlet so there was no way out. She didn’t have enough time to evade them and every time she tried to strike one of them down Undyne would take the first blow and be transformed. It would all go downhill from there.

They were not exactly stronger than Sans had been but unlike Sans, they were not facing her alone. They truly were a spectacular team. Despite what the Underground thought of naive, quirky Papyrus, he had indeed been taking his training seriously. He knew the rhythm of his friend’s attacks. He knew the gaps and the breathers between each round and he knew how to bolster and fill in those weak points perfectly.

They abused the terrain too. If Chara tried to fight in the gauntlet they would box her in with barricades.

If she tried to scale the walls? Undyne would paint her soul green and cut a line in the stone that she could not cross.

Fight out in the open water? Papyrus would hit her with a blue attack and she would drown.

Rain watched the whole thing unfold again and again with a solemn sort of amusement from the distant reaches of her mind, doing her best to stay out of reach when Chara came looking for a human shield to dull the pain.

But this stalemate could not last forever. Either Chara would find a way to kill them, or she would reset their progress and take them through the Ruins again and make sure to separate the two friends next time.

In light of this new understanding, it made Papyrus’s pleas all the more heart wrenching to endure.

Where once Rain would have given anything to have someone reach out and try to help her. Now it just hurt to see him try so hard only to tread water with them in every attempt.

She could not help him. She could not save him. Any progress they made would soon be erased. She could not answer his please, no matter how much she wanted to.

She began to appreciate the cold understanding Sans had shown her in the Judgment Hall when she had tried to make peace with him. She was dammed. Sans had known that. Yet still Papyrus tried.

“Human, I know you are hurting...”

“I don’t understand why you did it…”

“I want to _help_ you!”

She moaned at this, shaking her head and turning away, trying to drown out his voice.

Every single time, without fail, when they would reset and he would immediately offer them mercy. She had to close her eyes and hide away in the back of her mind when she realized that he was starting to notice the resets in his own cloudy little ways. He even commented on it once or twice, acknowledging that he had felt the day flicker and that even though she had come back for them again, he still believed she had the choice to try to be better this time.

 _“Papyrus, no. **No**. I don’t _ have _a choice! You have to let me go. You have to give up on me. There is no one left here for you to save. That’s not me anymore! You are not talking to me. **That’s not me**!”_

“I know you can be good again.”

“I can still see kindness in your eyes.”

 _“Please. Just stop. You need to let me go.”_ She was so ready to give up. So eager to crawl back into her dreams and stay there forever. Her mind was being pushed beyond what one would dare try and inflict on someone if they ever hoped to keep them sane.

Yet still he called to her, refusing to let her go when she herself was ready to give up. It tore at her in a way she could not describe. His words brought back memories of that fleeting moment of contact when the other human souls had fought Chara inside her dreams and Daniel had tried to help her.

What had they been trying to tell her back then? What was it that she had failed to figure out? What was she missing? They had been counting on her but she had not been able to make a difference with her second chance. She was a disappointment to everyone. Just like she had been a disappointment on the surface.

Her parents had been right about her. She never had amounted to anything, had she? Even her attempt at death had been a colossal screw-up. She knew this now. She accepted it. So why couldn’t he?

Outside of her mind, the battle was ending again. Chara made some strangled noise of frustration and fell to her knees. Her back was decorated with spears, her skin blistered and her body soaked to the bone as she collapsed in the shallows.

“Fine! You want to talk to her so bad, Papyrus? Here! Knock yourself out! I’m sick of having to die on my own like this.” Chara spat, rolling back and giving up control, thus throwing Rain’s brooding consciousness to the front by default.

All at once she was able to see the world without the discolored dreamlike haze. She took in a sharp breath of surprise as the pain she had been avoiding so well came up and hit her hard enough to make things briefly go out of focus again.

“Dammit, Chara.” She hissed through her teeth, doubling over on herself. At least she was dying pretty fast this time. Already she felt things going numb.

 _“Go on. Say your piece. After this we are going back.”_ Chara warned.

Rain closed her eyes in understanding. Another true reset then. Another long slog through the snow. God, she hated snow.

She felt the cool water lapping against her face, blood giving the pool a metallic taste. She was vaguely aware of someone running towards her. Off in some impossible distance she could hear Undyne shouting in objection.

She felt someone nearby, water splashing against her face as they dropped to their knees beside her, tossing her fire poker away. The spears lodged in her back dispersed, bringing some degree of relief that was quickly outshined by the pain of involuntary movement when a pair of trembling boney hands gently disturbed her position.

She groaned, face screwing up against the pain as Papyrus scooped her up and cradled her close to his chest. Tears fell off the corners of his jaw and faded into her already damp hair while he cradled her head.

“Human,” he whispered, rocking her and stroking her hair. “I’m sorry. I am so sorry. Truly I am.”

He always apologized for her death when he won. He always begged her to forgive him for hurting her- even though he never intentionally dealt the killing blow. The drowning were always just an oversight on his part. It wasn't something he had ever had to think about when training with a fish.

She closed her eyes and tried to focus on his voice as it continued to grow more and more distant.

This was the first time in memory that he had had enough time to do more than just call to her across the water. This was the first time he had been able to hold her.

She coughed, painting his chest red. He did not seem to notice.  “Papyrus?” She mumbled, numb fingers grasping at his forearm as she struggled to look up at him and get her heavy lids to stay open.

“Please, human. I know you can be good again. Why must you do this?” He nearly sobbed. “There is so much I don’t understand, but I want to try. So please, help me understand!”

Damn. Now she was going to start crying too, wasn’t she? “You have to let me go, Papyrus.” She begged, voice nothing more than a thin whisper. “You have to let me go. I’m not myself anymore. You can’t fix us. I tried. I tried so hard to fix us but I can’t figure out the secret. I can’t…I …” Her whimper became a feeble sob. “Just let me go. Just let me go so I can give up.”

“No. No, never! You can do this. I know you can!”

Undyne was at his side, spear lowered in a protective way. “Papyrus, let her go. She could still be dangerous.” She ordered, hands trembling and breath heavy after the draining fight.

Papyrus looked up at her, the edges of his jaw stained red where they had pressed against Rain’s head. “She’s _dying_ , Undyne. The least I can do is comfort her!”

Undyne’s face fell, a sad smile tugging at the corners of her tired lips.  She crouched down and rested a comforting hand on Papyrus’s shoulder. “Hmph. Even after all this, you are still you.” She murmured. 

Rain closed her eyes and focused on the sensation of being held. It had been such a very, very long time since she had been touched. Too long since she had enjoyed any sort of kindness or warmth. She did not deserve it now but that did not stop her from selfishly drinking it all in. She wanted to hang on just a little bit longer and rest. She wished she could hide in this little moment of warmth forever.

…This was nice.

“She is going to reset again.” She managed to croak. “All of this is going away.”

Papyrus nodded in understanding. “...Good... Good. I look forward to that.” He sighed. “We can finally make things better. We can do better. Next time.”

Undyne gave him a curious look, the only one of the three that did not understand what was going on.

Rain coughed and reached out to touch his face, drawing him closer so that he had to look her in the eye. “No. _No_. When I come back it won’t be me. It will have my face and my voice but… It. Wont. Be. _Me_.”

“But it’s you _now_!” He laughed, hugging her again and beginning to rock her once more. “You are a good person. I knew you were!  And when you get back, I promise human, I will do my very best to remember you this time. I will remember and help you.”

Damn this darkness. It was chewing away at her vision now. She couldn’t hold it back anymore. “…No. No, Papyrus you can’t.” She argued, eyes closing against the sudden exhaustion. It hurt but she rather enjoyed the rocking sensation. His bones were even kind of warm. That was nice. She liked warm. She had missed warm.

 _“_ Papyrus, I’m begging you, if you remember anything at all from all this, remember this: I need you to kill me.”

“ _Over and over and over if you have to. Bring Undyne, the guards, your brother- bring them all with you and fight me.”_ It took her a moment to realize she was merely thinking these thoughts now. She couldn’t feel her body anymore. The quiet sobs of the strange, kindhearted Papyrus were but a distant echo bounding through the many cracks of the darker darkness now.

_“Ah. Well, too late I guess.”_

Darkness.

Falling.

Healing.

Rain.

***

“I would say rest in peace, but we both know that’s not going to happen.” Sans’s skull cracked against the trunk of the tree, the force of the blow causing its snow laden branches to free themselves of their weight and attempt to bury him as he fell.

She reset and began again, grateful to have such a pathetic punching bag to take out all her frustration on after having lost to Undyne and Papyrus one too many times.

There were now dozens of resets set between their current situation and their encounter with Undyne and Papyrus. Chara had tried several times now to kill both Sans and Papyrus before Undyne ever had a chance to get mixed up in things but it never quite worked out. So after countless wasted attempts, Chara was taking a break so she could let off some steam. She reloaded the same save over and over again and took her frustration out on Sans, since despite his more accurate knowledge of what was going on, he still remained too lethargic to do anything about his gut feelings until it was too late.

She met him out in the snow and killed him over and over again, skull cracking against the same tree every time, causing Rain to flinch until she just closed her eyes to it, disappointed in his lack of fighting spirit. Even when she could tell he could feel that something was wrong he continued to offer them that stupid handshake instead of trying to stop them.

Was it because he still believed in them? No. No, if he had even the faintest memory of the Judgment Hall then how could he? This was just his… acceptance.

It was so frustrating to know that if he could have just brought himself to care none of this could have ever happened in the first place. If he had done his damn job right from the start Chara never would have been given the  chance to do all this.

But without Flowey there to goad him on, without the whole Underground first going empty under his watchful eye, nine times out of ten he just couldn’t seem to bring himself to do anything.

At least by letting Chara have her fun with him it kept her from her real task a while longer. It gave Rain time to think and try to come up with something- not that it helped.

Chara went on like this until Sans finally wised up enough to kill her first. Even then they only lost because Chara had managed to screw up the rhythm and slip, giving Sans some extra time to react.

Then she reset once more, running through a few true resets for good measure to clean the slate before doing things in earnest. After countless failed attempts to cut corners, Chara settled on simply mirroring the actions that had brought her so far during her first attempt.

She let Flowey escape to who knows where. Rain failed to give him any sort of warning and Chara vowed to kill him once she got the chance in New Home.

Rain finaly got to watch the truth unfold in Toriel’s house when she saw that the old monster had never meant them any harm in the first place. Chara had once claimed that Toriel had been scheming with someone on the other side of the door but now Rain knew that she had only been talking to Sans. Reminding him of a promise he had once made not to hurt any humans. It felt like someone had pulled the rug out from under her. She didn't know whether to feel ashamed of herself, grateful for the unexpected kindness Toriel and Sans had shown by honoring their agreement, or angry that she could have been stopped by now if Sans had never made his promise.

When they confronted her about leaving the Ruins Toriel begged them to reconsider. She tried to calm them, comfort them even.

…There was such betrayal in her eyes when they cut her down.

Maybe Chara was right. Maybe letting them die was a kindness.  After all, what had all of Rain’s troubles won monster-kind in the end? A few days of muddled confusion where they were left to grieve over those she could not save? A few days were they got to relive the same nightmares, the same pains, over and over again because she was not strong enough to save them and was too weak to let just them go? Suspended in that kind of limbo was no way to exist. Maybe Chara was right. Maybe they were not the ones were were broken, maybe it was the world itself that was cursed.

Maybe death was a kindness.

She cried.

They shook hands with Sans; laughing even though he had forgotten the whoopee cushion again. They smiled like it was all a good natured joke when he told them to just keep pretending to be a human for his brother’s sake.

She marched through the bitter cold, head bowed to the wind as she ignored one puzzle after another to the great distress of Papyrus and the ever mounting worry of his brother, who seemed to be trying to recall something oh-so-important lurking just at the edge of memory.

Rain tried to warn them but her attempts had grown weary and halfhearted. Everything was a slow and discolored thing viewed at a distance now.

To her great personal grief, Papyrus had somehow managed to keep his promise despite all the resets that should have rotted his memory. Where they should have had their final confrontation on the outskirts of Snowdin, he instead waited in the cool dark of the fog with open arms and a voiced belief that he could teach them to be good again.

Despite all those they had hurt along the way, he still believed in them.

_“Please, Papyrus, if I can save only one it would be you. Just give up on me. Let me give up on myself. Let my memory die. Then run. Run like hell and never look back!”_

It was one of the only places where she still managed to scrape together enough effort to fight back but it wasn’t enough. It was _never_ enough. And so he died with a smile on his face, arms still held open to embrace her as he turned to dust.

They donned his flame colored boots. Chara cracked his skull underfoot, then turned her back to the echo of his dying words.

Those words ate away at Rain’s back with every step.

_“I still believe in you…”_

Maybe death was a kindness.

She laughed.

Undyne fought valiantly, once again managing to draw on her own Determination when Chara became too overzealous. Rain tried to help but every time she did, Chara would just use her as a buffer against the pain, torturing her until she finally relented. Then she would smother her in a cloak of darkness, dulling her emotions and causing her thoughts and memories to become sluggish and blurred.

Eventually Undyne fell. Without Papyrus there to support her, the gaps in her defense could be exploited. Undyne laughed at them as she died. She flashed death an amused grin as she melted, promising them that monster kind would live on despite all this.

Rain covered her ears and closed her eyes, pressing herself as far into the darkness as she could go. Her dreams swallowed her and her memories enveloped her, hiding her from reality.

Maybe… death was a kindness.

***

This was not real. It was a dream. A memory.

…Good.

_She watched from atop her favorite hill as their neighbor popped open the hood and began to fish around in the car’s engine. From under the cover of her favorite tree she sung quiet songs to herself and strained to listen to the distant murmur of the man giving his son instructions on what to do._

_It was all nonsense to her, garbled and overridden by the summer song of birds. Yet still she watched with secret curiosity as they pulled things apart, replaced them, ran tests and crawled in and out of various places to search of the source of the problem._

_When they took a break from their work the man pulled out a pair of sandwiches to share with his son. They sat in the shade and joked with one another._

_That looked nice. That boy must have a cool dad._

_She climbed down from her hill and went inside to grab a lunch of her own, casting a few sideways glances out the window to keep an eye on the visitors as she did so._

_Her parents had been fighting again recently. It had been one of the bad ones. Dad had stormed off the other day and had not been back since. That morning Mom’s car had had trouble starting and she had missed work. She had spat out a string of curses from between her pinched lips and cigarette while she called around to see if anyone could help her. A neighbor from down the road had answered the call._

_They didn’t know them very well. They didn’t seem to be home very much but she had seen the boy in passing a few times in town. Her mother had warned her not to bother them when they showed up since they had a job to do._

_She made her own sandwich and went back outside. Since the neighbors were still on break she wandered around among the hills, quickly eating her lunch and singing to herself as she collected wildflowers._

“When you climb mount Ebott, you may not like what you see

There are monster hid beneath the rock, nasty as can be

Their demon cries won’t reach the skies, their souls trapped down beneath,

Hid within the darkest dark, filled with lots of teeth.”

 

_She jumped when she heard something disturbed the silence with a chorus of breaking twigs and rustling grass. She spun around with a little gasp, cheeks going bright red with embarrassment when she saw the boy standing there._

_“Hi!” He chirped._

_“Um, hello.”_

_“Were you singing the monster song?”_

_She looked down at the ground in shame. “Sorry.”_

_“Sorry about what?” His brow scrunched up in confusion._

_“About singing.”_

_“You don’t have to be sorry.”_

_“Yeah, well, my mom said I shouldn’t sing because I’m tone deaf and it’s annoying.”_

_“Well I think it sounded pretty. Just like a song bird! I won’t tell her that you sing.”_

_She smiled sheepishly. “Thanks.”_

_There was an awkward silence between them where they just smiled and looked at everything except each other. “So, um, do you want to come help me work on the car? We saw you watching us.”_

_She looked back in the direction the car was in, curious but cautious. “I can’t. I was told to stay out of the way of men’s work.”_

_He frowned again. “I’m not a man, I’m a kid!” He informed with no small level of confusion. “And my dad said it’s important to learn how to fix a car, so I think it must be kids work too.”_

_She scowled at him, unsure of this reasoning. “Are you sure?”_

_“Mhm! Come on, it’s fun! Don’t worry, my dad is really nice.”_

_She shuffled forward. She had to admit that the guts of the car did pique her interest quite a bit. “Ok. If you say so. If you don’t think he will be mad.”_

_He scoffed at this. “My dad’s a big dork. Even when he’s mad he just looks funny.” He nodded back in the direction of the car. “Follow me. If we hurry maybe you can have one of our cookies before he eats them all. I made them myself!” He raced off down the hill, crashing through the grass, leaving her to follow after him with a more cautious pace to her steps. “Come on, Song Bird!” He called over his shoulder.  
_

_“Ok.” She peeped._

_“Oh and if you want to keep singing while we work, you can do that too.” He added; a little red in the face. “I will sing with you.”_

_“…Ok.” She would not sing again._

_“Oh by the way, my name is Daniel. What’s your name?”_

_She smiled a little. “My name is…”_

 


	27. What is it that makes them try?/what makes us climb mountains?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **What is it that makes them try?** / ~~what makes us climb mountains?~~
> 
> Why did Rain climb the mountain?  
> Why is she climbing it again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for missing the Sunday update. I took the wrong files from my Sister's USB when she sent back the edited chapters and I had to wait a while before I had the chance to hunt down the right ones. There were some other small issues with the normal editing process but hopefully it didn't turn out too bad this time.

 

 

 

_For a moment the dream rippled and the shell of her imagined reality trembled. Perhaps it was because she was remembering the night she had been told she had to go home and rest after having joined the search parties for two consecutive days. She had refused to rest after Daniel and his parents had gone missing but eventually she collapsed in exhaustion and had to be sent home._

_She had just woken up from a fitful sleep the next morning when she got the call from one of her neighbors who had gone up to the mountain with her._

_They had found the bodies of Mr and Mrs Hearting._

_Daniel was still missing._

_As best as they could tell, they had been driven from their campsite thanks to a mild shower that had turned into something much more sinister during the night, creating an unexpected mudslide that had washed away their gear. They had  probably been seeking shelter when the second slide hit, burying them._

_After she hung up the phone she fell to the cold hardwood floor of her room and waited to cry, yet nothing happened. She should have cried for the loss of parents better than her own. She should have cried to release all the bottled up stress she had been holding back on a vague hope. She should have cried because Daniel was an orphan now._

_She should have cried because he was probably dead too._

_But she just felt empty. It was like she had finished a book that had ended its story mid-sentence. There was still this air of waiting for something else to happen- but this was it._

_It was in this moment of hollow grief, when she felt like a gaping black hole had opened up in her chest, that she raised her head to look out of her bedroom window and watched as it warped and wobbled , becoming something else._

_A familiar dread rose up inside her. The illusion of her safe haven was cracking. She was waking up. She had accidentally chosen the wrong memory to hide in and now her grief had opened up a literal window back into the present, causing the walls of her dream to grow thin and her awareness to sharpen.  
_

_“No.” She whispered, rising to her feet and looking down the long dark tunnel opening up before her, spying a familiar face on the other end. A name came to mind. A name she should not have known at this time in her life: Mettaton._

_He was alone; the room dark save for the glare of a few abandoned computer screens. He danced about on his single wheel, making grand gestures as he spoke. His frame was scratched and dented. In some vague sort of way she understood that this was because it had taken a lot more risk and effort for him to goad Chara into chasing him this time around._

_“Why?” She asked aloud, looking down that warped, tunneled view that lead back to the waking world and feeling only a sad sort of confusion. “You are weaker than her. Weaker even than me. She has already killed you before. She has already killed your friends, your family… everyone! She has broken into every house and scattered every resident to dust. Don’t you remember? This is pointless!”_

_He could not hear her. He could not respond. Yet still she could imagine what he would say if he could: “I know that darling, but I still have to try.”_

_For a moment she reached out to him, hands pushing through the inky blackness that pressed in around her and kept her feeling numb. She knew that on the other side of that shadow, that window, there would be only pain. There would only be punishments awaiting her attempted good deeds. Yet still, out of habit, she felt like she was supposed to try._

_There had been something she had been trying to figure out back in that world. That life she had chosen to hide from._

_A question._

_An answer someone had wanted her to find. A way to beat Chara that always hid just out of sight-_

_She withdrew from the opening._

_No. No, the darkness was too thick. She did not wish to penetrate it. She would rather stay on this side were it was safe. Death was a mercy. One she could give but not receive. Chara may have been right all along. Maybe it wasn’t the two of them that were sick but the world itself that was corrupted. It had to be. It wouldn’t let her die!_

_She tore herself away from the window, yet its afterimage followed her whenever she thought to look. She watched the robot shed its outer shell and reveal its brilliant humanoid shape, boosters flaring in brilliant arcs of strobing light._

_She could now see all the little details she had missed during their first time around. The way his jaw was set and the way his lips were pressed. The way he kept his elbows close to his body like he wanted to just pull his arms all the way back up against himself in an act of protection.  He was afraid. He knew this was suicide...Yet still he tried._

_“No.” She murmured, closing her eyes. But the darkness of her lids was nothing but an illusion in this dream. Still the image faced her. She watched him make his stand, brilliant and shining. The closest thing the Underground had to a sun or a star to look up to. And then like a star, he fell; burning brighter and brighter until he burned himself out and fell away into nothing but a jumble of burnt and broken parts. Coolants and magic seeped from his joints, his eyes fading to black. Then there was only silence._

_“I don’t want to see this!” She screamed, causing the walls of her dream to tremble against the sound._

_It was the grief had had forced her to see this. The grief had made the walls of her dream too thin. This memory had awakened all the things she had been hiding from._

_She would just have to hide in some other time. She still had places and dreams to hide in._

_The window changed. It became an opening into another memory. Without bothering to look at where it would lead, she leap through the opening, eyes squeezed shut._

_She fell into a new memory and made herself forget._

_This was a mercy._

***

She wiped the pollen and sap from her hands. It was done. She had caught him and torn him down in their old bedroom of all places. The mistake had finally been corrected. She had made it to the end once more.

 She was surprised that Rain had not tried to fight her when she killed Asriel.  After all it was the only possible moment left in time where everything could have been ruined. Yet she had slept right through it. She had chosen to dive too deep into her dreams and had not woken up. Good.

Now all that was left was Sans. Annoying, lazy, good for nothing Sans. After that she would at long last be able to take her father’s soul and leave this accursed place. She could move on to do the things she had been too weak to do as a child. At long last she would be the strong one. She would be the one in control.

She looked down the road to the awaiting entrance of the golden hall. It had been a very, very long time since she had been back here. So many resets had passed them by at this point. So much time had been lost to her pointless battles with Rain. But she still remembered the song she had made for the impending fight. She remembered the rhythm. She remembered his attacks and the order they came in.

He would give her trouble. He always did. But she knew now that he could be defeated. He was alone. He had _chosen_ to be alone. Silly creature. As was often the case with his type, in the end he was his own worst enemy. 

She took her time to prepare. She sharpened her spear and kitchen knife- her true friends together again at the end! She redid the tie on her ponytail so that her ashen hair did not get in her eyes. She even went out and got some food to take with her in case she needed more sustenance to keep up with the demanding healing that would take place.

She would probably have to wake Rain again for this at some point. She imagined she would put up a fight for a while out of habit but using her to dull and heal the pain would be important. After all, they had no doubt gotten a little rusty after all this time.

When she got up to the entrance she stopped and took a deep breath. She knew what was next. She did not like it. She did not look forward to it. It had been fun once upon a time but now all the days had stretched off into forever and she no longer found this place amusing. She just wanted it to be done and over with.

She stepped into the hall, warm light bathing her pale skin. She looked off to her side, watching a familiar shape step from the shadows. Her lips were set into a tight, long-suffering line at the sight of him. _Here we go again._

“heya.” He greeted, voice smooth and casual. It made her eye twitch.

She bit off each word with a growl. “Hello Sans.”

As he stepped out into the light she noticed something new about him. Something curious. He wore the same worn slippers and blue coat, the same black pants and battered orange scarf as always, but his face had changed.

There was a thick branching line of cracks running up and down the left side of his face. Among a haze of hairline cracks, a more pronounced two-pronged fork managed to mar the upper and lower ridge of his eye socket. The largest crack even managed to sweep all the way back to behind where his ear would have been.

She offered him a curious frown. He had not had that back in Snowdin. But he _had_ had that exact pattern of cracks over his eye when she had slammed his face into a tree a few resets back.

“gee lady, you look like you have seen a ghost.” He remarked.

“In many ways I suppose I have.” She was starting to see more and more of these consistencies bleeding over from timelines that should have been erased. The color for her hair was not regaining all of its red color when she reset and sometimes monsters seemed to be taken up by a moment of familiarity that confused them. Papyrus’s promise to show them mercy across timelines may have been one of these examples as well. Then there were the darker cracks of darkness she saw when traveling between resets. The cracks did not face. In face they seemed to be growing with every death, reaching out as if to snare her.

And now there was this. More cracks. Probably a weird side effect of the way she had been abusing the resets to purge and cloud memories.

She wondered if he knew how he had gotten such a mark. Or had he just woken up one night to find that it had always been there?

Internal monologue of curiosities aside, Sans had his own comments to make. He was drifting towards her with his hands in his pockets now. He looked this way and that in a casual manner as if he had only come here to appreciate the murals and stain glass windows that framed the walls.

“you know what i hate about dreams? they start to fade as soon as you wake up. the important parts are always the first to go. trying to remember them just seems to make them fade faster, ya know?  “then, one day, you see something and it sparks your memory.” He snapped his fingers, still not looking at her. “but by then it’s too late to be worth anything anymore. it’s too late for that memory to be useful. its time has already past. so instead you’re just left standing there kicking yourself in the pants because now that you can remember it, it all seems just so _obvious_.

“so, you try to remember the rest of the dream before it’s too late. but it just keeps happening.  you keep remembering things only after their time has passed by. again and again and again, things always come back into focus just a little too late to be worth anything.” He closed his eyes and sighed, seeming to take a moment to compose himself before he looked up at her. “so, i guess what i’m trying to say is… hello again, rain. i can tell by the look on your face that we have done this all before.” He chuckled and his eyes went black. “you must be some kind of sicko, aren’t you?”

Chara twirled her spear back and forth, causing it to make a sharp swishing sound through the air. “Oh believe me Sans, it was fun for a while but I don’t want to have to do this again any more than you do.”

The little pricks of light returned to his eyes. His expression became sheepish and strained. He rubbed the back of his neck, an odd dry scraping sound. His worlds were weighed down by a shy, weary sort of honesty. “then, uh… don’t? just walk away. i won’t stop you. it would actually make me really happy. er, well, sort of. happy may be an exaggeration at this point. i just want my friends back. so, why not take a load off and reset?”

Chara scowled at the notion. “I’m not getting cold feet, Sans. I just overlooked something the last time I was here.” She looked at the yellow pollen staining the underside of her chipped fingernails. “I could have destroyed the Underground a long time ago but it still takes a human and a monster soul to cross the barrier.” She shook herself from that train of thought before she explained too much. “But the error has been fixed. Don’t worry, this time your death will be permanent.”

He looked down and scuffed the floor, nodding to himself a little. “heh. i'm almost tempted to let you through then. if it was just my life on the line, i’d let you do it. i really would. things would be so much easier if i just stopped waking up. but what you have done down here…what you have done to me, what you have done to my friends- to my brother- i  couldn’t wish that on the rest of the world. even if they did end up trapping us all down here with _you_.”

His non-dominate eye had faded into darkness and the blue flames were growing stronger in his left socket. The cracks in his skull were a good look for him. The blue light seeped through them and painted a new set of ominous shadows over that side of his face. It was creepy.

 He took a deep breath, the cold light in his left eye growing brighter and more defined. “so, i have to warn you, after all the things you have done, this time it won’t be quick. because obviously frustrating you won’t work. so this time, if you really want this, if you decide to take that extra step forward… its gonna get _messy_.”  Ah, there it was. His signature grin. Stretching wide and sharp, the look of Cheshire mania.

Chara stepped forward. Let the dance begin.

***

_Her stomach was a nervous beast. It whined and gargled and curled in around itself in an uneasy fret. Each bump in the dirt road caused it to jump.  She couldn’t get it to calm down thanks to the thought of what would soon come next._

_She had tried. She really, truly had. Her parents would know that, right? She had been alone. She thought she would be doing this with_ him _. She thought she would have more support. Hell, she thought she would have more money._

_More time._

_More confidence._

_Empty soda cans rattled around in their cup holders and the radio buzzed and warbled with static that leaped up from the background to consume the station’s droning voices every now and again. The voices grew more and more faint with every passing minute._

_“you… picked a…beauty… one Chara….wait, why are you looking.…..like that?”_

_“haya….gee…ou…..seen a…ghost…”_

_“I……have….”_

_“… **you know what I hate about dreams**?”_

_She turned the radio off. Reception always started to get kind of shoddy around here anyway._

_She listened to her windshield wipers squeak back and forth, smearing droplets across the glass. She chewed her lip and rounded the corner, splashing muddy water up onto the old blue paint of her truck._

_She took in a long, slow breath. There it was. The house she grew up in: same as ever. She had been hoping she would not have to see it again so soon._

_Her foot eased off the gas for a second but then she saw her parents waiting for her on the porch. She pressed on. She couldn’t let them see her slowing down as soon as she saw them._

_She rolled up into the gravel driveway and made a quick act of getting out to greet them. A fake smile was already being painted over her chewed lips. She tried to sound happy to see them. “Hello!”_

_Her father remained silent and crossed his arms over his chest. He gave her a long, hard look before leaving._

_Her mother blew out a long curl of smoke from her nose and grunted. She did not bother to get up off of the cement stair she was sitting on._

_Wood rot, cheap beer, pine and nicotine. These were the smells of their house; of her empty room now waiting to be occupied once more. The stench clogged the air despite the drizzling rain._

_She started pulling out her luggage._

_“What did I tell ya?” He mother spat._

_Ah. Starting already then. Alright. “I did my best, mom.”_

_“Well your best was shit.” She flicked the ashes from her cig. “I told you, you wouldn’t be cut out for college. What did I say?”_

_“Are we really going to start this now? I haven’t even unpacked yet.”_

_“I told you, you were not cut out for business administration and management. I told you, you wouldn’t be able to do it. But oh you_ swore _you could!” She threw her hands up in the air. “You swore up and down that you could do it!”_

_“Mom, I can do it. I swear I can. It’s just- it’s just been hard. I’m not giving up yet.”_

_“Oh yeah? Well it sure the hell looks like you are. Moving right back in to leech off your parents after you blew all your money on booze and parties.”_

_She spun around, the beast in her belly now roaring with anger and frustration. “I did **not** go to college to party!” She slammed the door shut and slung her bags over her shoulder. Her arms were shaking. “I worked my ass off every damn night! But you know what? The money still ran out. My grades still suffered. I spent all my time studying and waiting tables. When I should have been sleeping I was applying for grants and when I should have been eating I was trying to fix my truck!_

_“But guess what mom? It’s hard to get to work when your car won’t start and it’s hard to pay for parts when you can’t get to work. It’s hard to make friends that can help you out when you have spent your whole life isolated on a fucking mountain and it’s hard to get grants when you can’t keep your grades up because you spent so much time studying and so little time eating and sleeping that you eventually just break down! It’s hard to keep getting back up again by yourself when there is no one there to find you when you are down!”_

_Her mother jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t you dare take that tone with me! You can’t come crawling back here and give me lip like that! I swear to god if you so much as spit one more goddamn word at me you can forget about having your old room back!”_

_She ground her teeth together and  glared holes into her mother’s face. She focused on her narrowed green eyes, dull orange hair and the frowning stress lines of her expression. She couldn’t afford to get kicked out before she had even unpacked. “Sorry.”  
_

_Her mother took another drag from her cig. “Damn right you are.”_

_She forced herself to look away and try and grab a few more things from the truck to carry inside. “I should only be here for a month or two. If I can keep the truck working I can work at the diner in town. Once I get some rest I will look into other options.”_

_Rain paused mid potion. The world wobbled again, threatening to break the dream. Golden light was punching holes in the cloud cover overhead, spilling out onto the unkempt grass. For some reason she was given the impression that this angered the clouds. They were descending from their proper place in the sky and billowing towards her like rolling fists of smoke._

_The radio leapt back to life and buzzed at her. “Why so quiet, Sans? I miss all your bad jokes!”_

_The dark clouds wrapped around her arms and legs and tried to drag her away. Her mother stared on, eyes dull and lifeless as she continued to smoke._

_Rain struggled against the familiar pull of Chara’s grasp as she tried to drag her through the floor of her dream and pin her into place with shadows. Chara wanted to balance her in a half sleep so that she could act as her protective membrane against the oncoming pain. She wanted a human shield._

_The raindrops began to display reflections of a golden hall. A hundred thousand twinkling reflections of a skeleton conducting a symphony of magic watched her from within every raindrop. The world became a storm of remembered encounters where Sans stood alone before her, pushed to the edge at last. She saw the last corridor and Chara's last obstacle standing before her in all his worn down glory; clad in orange and blue._

_She pulled away from the snares of smoke and shadow. She ran from the hidden eyes inside the rain. She managed to get the door to her truck open and dragged herself inside, hands sticky with unexplained blood as real injuries began to seep into her illusion. When she looked down she saw cuts and punctures forming all over her body. A pain that had once been a distant ache to be ignored was becoming far more overwhelming now._

_She slammed the door shut, severing the searching tendrils of Chara’s presence. She crawled across the seats and pushed the other door open, adrenaline coursing through her as she tumbled out of the other side of the truck and fell into another memory._

***

She cursed under her breath. Rain had managed to escape her attempts to pin her down. That girl was getting really good at running away from her problems.

Chara dodged the walls of bone, swaying this way and that as they arced up from the floor and sliced through the air where her head should have been. Several smaller attacks came flying out at her from behind the curve of multiple pillars, cutting at her arms and shoulders as she tried to roll out of the way of one attack only to push herself into the path of the next.

“Come on Sans, don’t give me the cold shoulder! I am starting to miss our little talks.”

She was panting, slipping on her own blood. Dammit. Of the two of them Rain had become the more skilled at healing. She needed an opportunity to eat and catch her breath but Sans had already offered her his “mercy” for this encounter. She needed to try and stall him some other way.

“what’s the point? i’m sure you have already heard everything i have to say by now.” He picked her up and flicked his wrist, sending her cartwheeling across the room only to be whipped back around at the last second and sent back towards her starting point.

A thick bone came spinning towards her just below knee level. She didn’t have time to doge it. It crashed into her with a sickening snap and her legs fell out from under her. She screamed, falling to her side.

Spikes of splintered bone rose up from the stone one by one, short and barbed and catching on her clothes as they sank into her skin.

He pinned her there, bleeding and broken but unable to die. There was a grim, determined look to the set of his jaw. It was hard to tell what he thought of all this. Maybe he had enjoyed this once upon a time. But he had grown numb to the thought of vengeance in light of knowing it would not stop her. Something inside of him had broken. His eyes were haunted but just like poor little Rain, he continued to go through the motions for the sake of saying he had.The memories bleeding in from past resets were not an easy burden for him to bare.

“Well then, if you won’t talk, I will.” She rasped, a bubble of blood forming in her throat. She had managed a few close calls with him this round but he was still too damn good at dogging for her to hit him.

Oh well. This had been expected. It was going to take her a few tries to remember the rhythm. This round was over. It was time to make things end.

“I will tell my a joke of my own.”

“really? you are going to do this now?” Sans asked, a hint of frustration painting his voice.

“Why did the skeleton bleed?”

He glared at her, teeth flashing in the light of his own magic.

“Because everything he did was _in vein_!” She gave a shaky laugh when he did not react. “It’s ok, you’ll get that one eventually. I’ll tell you a different one.”

Two more spines dug into her shoulders. “i’m _really_ not in the mood.” He warned.

“No, no, this one’s funny!" She promised."Why did the chicken cross the road?”

Sans cocked his brow, pacing a slow half circle around her as he watched her bleed.

“To get to the other side!”

“uh, ok. sorry lady, never really got that one.”

She twitched a finger, trying to hold it up in thought. “Ah, but _why_ did the chicken want to get to the other side?”

He shook his head. “heh, dammit rain, I don-”

“To be with all your dead friends of course!”  She threw her hidden knife at him, gritting her teeth as the motion caused his attacks to dig ever deeper.

He twisted out of the way; teeth bared and eyes narrowed before he struck her down with a fatal blow from a solid wall of rolling  bone in his brief moment of anger.

Ah. There. Now she could reset.

His shoulders relaxed when he saw what he had done and understood her motives. He took a moment to compose himself while she bled out. “heh, cleaver.  i guess i let that one get away from me, didn’t i? oh well. guess i will have to try and remember not to do that next time.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. “hey, actually, i think I do have a joke to send you off with… knock, knock.”

The world was fading. It had been a good try. She would do better next time. She smiled. “Whose there?”

He was quiet for several seconds. “mercy. but no one came.”

***

_Daniel’s house had been left empty. They never found his body . She held on to the hope that he was still out there somewhere but one could only come up with so many believable excuses and scenarios for how he could have survived alone up on the mountain before the days ate away at those theories and laid them to rest._

_The Hearting’s house had been left in the possessions of Daniel’s uncle from his father’s side. He was a friendly man with a family that decided to keep the house and use it for visits and vacations since their line of work often had them passing through the area now and again. They had let Rain housesit for them a few times in the past before she had gone off to college; more as an act of kindness rather than out of any sort of necessity of their own._

_She had been trying to get a hold of them for the past few days in hopes that she could get permission to stay there for a while instead of her parent’s house but so far she had not been able to reach them. They were a busy bunch of folks and their last known phone number was outdated._

_Truth be told it hadn’t stopped her from breaking in during her worst days. They always kept a spare key hidden in the pile of lumber stacked against the side of the house. When she failed to get the job at the diner, or anywhere else in town for that matter, she spent quite a few afternoons hiding in her old childhood safe haven; too ashamed and afraid to go back to her parent’s house where she would have to face her failure._

_She took a few odd jobs from distant neighbors when she could but it wasn’t enough. Things didn’t get any better with her parents. Every night was filled with screaming and she was getting damn good at dogging the projectiles of their drunken tantrums. Why her parents had not divorced by now she would never know but they seemed to favor her as an alternative way to vent their frustrations with both her and each other._

_She tried to be good. She tried to make them happy. She wanted to make them proud. But they never really seemed to have been interested in that. They had never been that enthusiastic about being parents in the first place._

_Honestly the only thing she could do to make them happy would probably be to just stop existing!_

_…Hah._

_She wished that they would just tell her what it is they wanted from her. They always told her what she couldn’t do. They always let her know which things she was bad at but they never bothered to tell her what they thought she should be doing instead._

_What was she supposed to do? What could she do? She would give anything to know. She would give anything if she could just close her eyes and let someone make these choices for her, because she was obviously not good at making them on her own._

_…She started visiting mnt. Ebott._

_It started out innocent enough. She used to bring flowers up to the base of the mountain in the summer as a memorial to the adopted family she had lost. But as time went on and the arguments at home became more common, her attempts to find work less hopeful and her feeling of being trapped more smothering; she started to take drives up to the mountain more and more often for vague half-formed reasons._

_She started to linger until the sun set and wandered higher and higher up the long abandoned trails. Sometimes she didn’t come home at all. She just slept under the stars. Sometimes it was because she just couldn’t bring herself to go back to her parents’ house. Sometimes it was because her truck was having engine troubles. Troubles she chose to ignore every time she drove back up the mountain._

_She would sleep for a while, wake up and walk a little farther, then camp for the night. She was aimless and flirting with a danger she couldn’t find a reason to care about._

_Lots of people had climbed the mountain and had been fine. You just didn’t hear about them because they came back down in an uneventful manner. She wasn’t being_ that _careless, she insisted. Not everyone who visited the mountain never returned. Sure, there were lots of accidents, way more than there should be. But…_

_but..?_

_But she didn’t care._

_She had stopped believing in Santa Claus when she was five._

_She had stopped checking for monsters in the closet and under the bed when she had started hiding there herself._

_She stopped praying to gods when Daniel never came home._

_And now she had stopped believing in the curse of mnt Ebott._

_She was looking for something. She wasn’t quite sure what. And when she did eventually start to get an idea of what she was trying to find, the thought was quickly pushed away before she could think about it too much._

_Yet still she climbed higher. The terrain became more dangerous; her truck and campsite drifting farther and farther away with every step. Yet she did not turn back. She could not bear the thought of climbing back down again._

_She missed having friends._

_The Heartings had been her friends. She wanted to be with them again._

_Maybe she would find her place on the mountain too._

_She had wanted to go with them after all. They had invited her but her parents had told her no. Maybe she could have saved them if she had gone with them. Or maybe she would have  died too. Neither outcome sounded all that bad anymore._

_It began to rain._

_She was too far up to make it back down before the sun set. She started to look for some natural shelter to huddle under._

_That’s when she found it. A cave with a face that had been rubbed away by years of stormy weather and had begun to lose its ceiling to erosion. The arcing sides of the cavern still held some protection against the storm however, so she pressed herself up against them and watched the water run off the walls._

_There was a large hole in the center of the chamber; deep and dark and gaping. It swallowed all the water that ran into its maw._

_A thought pricked at her mind._

_Was this what she had been searching for?_

_She got up and inched a little closer and looked down into its depths. There was not enough direct sunlight for her to see the bottom._

_The thought grew stronger._

_Wouldn’t it be so easy if she just…?_

_She backed away. The dream’s illusion began to peel back. She was beginning to remember. The darkness inside the hole swirled and congealed into a dull reflection of an all too familiar scene. There was Sans, fighting the good fight all over again._

_She bit her lip and glared down into the pool._

_This was a dream. She had already **done** this. She had already jumped. She had already fallen. If she did so again she would not die. She would simply wake up._

_Still the thought rattled around in her head. She felt excited for some reason._

_She had found it. She had found the thing. **The thing**! …What thing?_

_She rubbed her temple and closed her eyes. She had been so close to understanding something before she had given up. She had been trying to figure out how to stop Chara but the thought kept escaping her._

_There were so many things she could not see clearly anymore. Her name, her age, the address she had lived at, the collage she had gone to- they had all been taken away from her when she had fallen. Those parts of her had died. Chara had left them in the darkness when she had pulled her into the light._

_Why?_

_Because it was easier to control something that didn’t have an identity of its own._

_As stood at the edge of the pit once again, unable to die, she swore she was close to understanding something she had been overlooking but she was running out of time to figure it out.The answer seemed so obvious yet impossibly far away- like the reflection of the moon cast in a puddle._

_“What’s the point of going back if I don’t know? I can’t change anything. I don’t **want** to go back. I don’t want to jump again.” She wondered aloud. She wanted to stay here and enjoy the rain. Enjoy the moon, the stars…the sun. She had never realized how much she had come to miss them._

_She looked up towards the sky to appreciate them once more but her heart sank as she did so. Only the distant, rough-hewn ceiling of a cavern waited to greet her now. The dream was unraveling. This was not real. There was no real sky here. No real stars, no real friends, no real progress. Only dying memories._

_She stared into the pit. The pool. The window that lead back to the present. She may not want to jump but the truth was she was already at the bottom of that hole._

_She watched Sans fight for a while longer, clenching and unclenching her fists as she slowly worked up the resolve she needed._

_Chara’s presence was boiling around the edges of the hole now. Shadowy threads crawling out across the stone like prying fingers searching for a hold._

_She was missing something. Something big and important and so obvious it was probably stupid. Nut maybe_ he _could help her. Maybe she could ask him. He wouldn’t be kind about it but maybe he could help her find the answer._

_She sighed. “What the hell. He’s going to be dead forever soon anyway. May as well try before hes gone. Not like I can’t just come back here when I’m done anyway.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes._

_For the second time in her life she took a blind leap into the darkness. But this time, her reasons were very, very, different._


	28. A bridge too far

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **~~A bridge too far~~ **
> 
> Rain discovers Chara's worst enemy.

So, Rain was back. And she was doing one hell of a job ringing true to the saying _“be careful what you wish for.”_  She was a more than adequate shield against the pain but other than that she was being a proper horror to deal with.

That was ok though. Chara had expected her to get her second wind somewhere near the end. She must like the dramatic effect of a last stand, just like her bonely little friend across the hall. But she would  eventually tire herself out again like she always did. Sans certainly wasn’t helping her case either. The agonizingly long, crule deaths were wearing Rain down faster than they were frustrating Chara. Once she was properly broken again Chara would have all the advantages of her unwilling teammate without having to deal with all the fighting and squirming she was putting up with now.

“friendship is really great, huh?” Sans chimed in, dogging two swings and dancing back out of reach, a wall of bone rising up and forcing her to retreat back a few steps. Even with Rain pestering her she was still making great progress. He was trying to hide his heavy breathing but the glisten of sweat on his skull told the truth of his position. “let’s stop fighting.” He held out his arms in an open gesture of peace, sweat trickling down the sides of his face. He couldn’t even bother to make himself sound convincing anymore.

As always Chara took this moment to heal and catch her breath. No doubt he was doing the same.

All of a sudden she lost control of her arm. She looked up in surprise and watched the rouge limb toss her weapon far across the hall, sending it bouncing against the stone and ringing against the walls.

Ah. Rain had just revealed her grand plan.

Chara sighed in exasperation, eyes darting between her lost weapons and Sans, who still had his arms held out and a look of surprise painted on his face.

“Really? _Really?_ This is what you woke up to do? You have resorted to throwing things _again_?” She chided.

Well, she still had her knife.

Upon remembering this, her other arm tossed that aside too.

Chara threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. “Fine! You know what? We have all been through this before. We both know what happens next, so here. You get to enjoy this by yourself.” She took Rain by the scruff and shoved her up front.

Rain blinked in surprised and stumbled forward a step. That had been easier than she had expected.

She worked her mouth, having to get used to the feeling of speaking aloud again after having suffered through several months of resets in silence. It felt weird after having been in the dream for so long. Her own tongue and teeth felt unfamiliar to her. “I uh, I did not expect that to work so well on the first try.” She admitted with a sheepish laughed, hunched over and hugging herself.

Sans’s arms lowered a bit in disbelief. “you… uh, you are really sparing me?”

She nodded, wobbling forward, focusing on mending her flesh. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re spared. Listen, I don’t know how much time I have left but I need your help.”

He sighed in relief. “finally. buddy, you have no idea how relived i am that i finally got through to you. c’mere.”

She frowned. Those words rang familiar. She looked up, eyes going wide, hands held out in front of her. “No, wait! Sans! Don’t!”

Ribs arced up from the floor, running her through and pinning her down in a rapidly growing pool of her own blood. There was no one there to dull her pain as it came. She cried out, choked sobs tasting like blood as the barbed bone shifted, tearing into her flesh inch by inch. Every nerve in her body begged her to flee back into the dream and let Chara reset but she couldn’t let go just yet. She couldn’t let this moment of control get away from her.  “You need to help me.” She rasped in desperation. “She keeps it so cloudy... I need new eyes to see”

He didn’t seem to hear her. Her voice was too quiet and broken. He was rubbing a hand over his face, his expression strange and conflicted; a maddening sort of emptiness floating around in his sockets as he giggled.  “wow! i’m surprised that worked this far into the game!” He covered his mouth and looked away, stepping around her but not quite looking at the carnage he had wrought as he laughed. “hah! wow. You must think I’m _really_ stupid huh? this is rich. _hilarious_.  i mean, come on, this late in the game how could i not know that this was just a new angle for you?” He shook his head, tired eyes closing as he took a few agonizingly long moments to compose himself while she continued to try and spit out some sort of sentence that would grab his attention.

It didn’t work. They both just sat and listen to his stressed out little chuckles and her bloody whimpering.

He cut off his laughter in an abrupt manner and straightened himself.  “welp, anyway, back to suffering.” He took a deep breath and raised his hand, summoning a new row of bones to finish her off. “geeett dunked on!

Pain.

Darkness.

_Reset._

***

She wasn’t always able to get her brief moment of mercy. Chara kept an iron grip on her weapons for the most part but every once in a while she managed to catch her off guard and disarm her, causing her to back off in frustration and let Rain say her piece.

She floundered with her words. It had been a while since she had been able to freely speak for any length of time. Even when she was given the chance to talk, Chara remained a dark fog bearing down on her thoughts as she tried to form them.

“Sans, help me.”

_Reset._

“Sans, please, stop!”

_Reset._

“Wait!”

_Reset!_

One after another her attempts fell on deaf ears; each death weakening her a little more and threatening to toss her back into that long dark tunnel that faded out into dreams.

She had to space out the attempts, allowing Chara to progress farther and farther on her own. Yet even though she allowed herself to bend she did not break. She soon found new ways to fight back against her that required less energy.

When Chara would sing her song Rain would sing along out of sync or out of tune. Or she would even re-invent Chara’s macabre lyrics and distract her with the new words.

“what’s a’ matter rain? looks like you are slowing down.”  Sans taunted, dogging from side to side then reappearing somewhere else. “sins weighing ya down? starting to feel them crawling on your back? hanging from your neck?”

Chara shambled after him, breathing uneven as she dodged the attacks and flung herself behind a pillar to avoid a rather nasty blast from one of his monstrous skulls.  She was bleeding profusely from every little cut and scrape she had sustained.

“Shut up. It will pass.” She snapped.

“you sure are bleeding a lot, huh? wonder why.” He shrugged, sidestepping his own attack and catching her in the chest as she tried to hit him. “just karma, i guess.”

Rain smiled somewhere deep inside the fog, pressing up against the growing list of wounds and protecting them from Chara’s attempts to heal them. She allowed them to tear open all the wider with every movement, carefully protecting them and coaxing them to grow like the feeble embers of a fire being brought back to life. _“Yes, karma. I guess you could say that.”_

***

Thirty seconds. That was his rough estimate. Thirty seconds between the soul dispersing and the human reloading to the start of the fight again. Thirty seconds where he thought that maybe this time, finally, she would stop. She would give up.

The thought persisted for a few brief seconds after he was pulled back to his original starting point. One moment he would be staring at the bloody, demolished pillars of the final room and the next he would find himself standing under the pristine, polished archways of the untarnished hall, alone once more. Then he would hear her approaching footsteps at the other end of the room and he would know what awaited him.

_ah, of course. who was i kidding?_

Then he wouldn’t know exactly _why_ he had thought that. He could not remember what he had been thinking just a moment ago. The image of the bloody halls slipped his mind. He only knew that this was not the first time he had done this. It wasn’t the second, the third, or fiftieth... or the hundredth.

All he knew was that he had thirty seconds.

_thirty seconds for what?_ Hell if he knew.

Then he would fight and he would fight and he would fight. Sometimes spilling out lines that he thought may be new only to hear them echo around inside his head in a sense of de ja vu that soon solidified into true familiarity after he had finished speaking.

He would doge and he would doge and he would doge. Growing more and more tired with each narrow escape; his mind becoming more and more weary with every swipe that missed. And then finally, at long last, he would somehow catch her. He would catch her and he would pin her down and make her bleed. He would make her suffer. He would make her _pay_.

Part of him was still angry about all this. But the anomaly had been messing with his timeline for so long now that even the true resets were not enough to fully wipe away the afterimages she had left behind- and being able to remember glimpses of all the times he had succeeded only to have his victory reset made it hard to keep trying.

Forgetting had been a mercy.

He knew just enough to know that none of this mattered to her. The deaths, the pain, the time lost- all of it was unimportant in her methodical rampage. It made the loss of his friends and family feel dull and distant. How many times had she killed them? How many times had he gotten them back? He could not decide if he welcomed or feared this dullness in his chest whenever it happened to manifest itself.

Was this madness?

But now she was saying that this time they would all be dead for good if he let her pass. If she got past him there would be no more resets and as much as he hated them, at least a new reset meant a fresh start. A second chance. So he couldn’t afford not to care anymore. He had to try for their sake- right?

Still, it was hard to give it his all.

He caught his breath while she bled out a few feet away.

Sometimes he enjoyed doing it.

Sometimes he just felt empty.

Sometimes he laughed.

Sometimes he couldn’t remember how to laugh at all.

But eventually, no matter how drawn out he made it, she would die and her soul would shatter. Its light would disperse in an act of evasion too fast for him to ever hope to catch. Then he would stand and wait, wondering if maybe this time she would finally quit.

Nothing would happen for a while. The room would be quiet. He would count the seconds as they passed, a little glimmer of hope rising up inside of him.

Then he would remember and finally understand what he had been thinking when she had first stepped into the hall: _thirty seconds._

And right on the mark, he would be pulled back; vowing to remember this time and feeling a little glimmer of hope when he succeeded for the first few seconds of the reset. Then it would all fade back into a nagging shadow in the back of his mind and he would hear her entering the hall.

So he fought on, again and again, until something strange started to happen.

Despite knowing that by now he had probably already fooled her with his little trick, he still offered her mercy. Truly he did not want to. The lie stuck up against the roof of his mouth like mud when he tried to spit it out. Just the thought of forgiving her after all this made him feel sick. But he was getting tired and needed a moment to catch his breath. Surely it would at least make her pause for a second, right?

He was completely taken off guard when she tossed her weapons aside.

His sockets widened a bit in surprise. Had he really not offered this before? No, no he could still feel that faint feeling of de ja vu floating around in his head telling him that he had. But maybe this was the first time she had thought to take him up on the offer?

“you are sparing me?” The words sounded strange coming from his mouth. His body remained tense, ready to move out of the way at the slightest indication of aggression. She had just discarded a hidden knife he had known nothing about, who was to say she didn’t have something else hidden up her sleeve?

She nodded, looking winded. A curtain of loose ashen hairs framed her face like a macabre veil.

His smile twitched, a single note of laughter wheezing out like a sigh as he held out his arms. “finally. buddy, you have no idea how glad i am to hear that. c’mere.”

He would catch her in the back when her guard was down. He wasn’t proud of backstabbing but at this point she deserved it. It’s not like she _meant_ it when she said she wanted peace. After all she had done there was no way she could have a real change of heart this close to the end.

“I want to be good again.” She murmured, catching him off guard. “I need your help. I just need help. I need to find…something.” She was limping towards him. She looked thin and weak but still the movements sent his soul racing with panic. She was getting closer, eyes downcast and shaded by the dust of past sins. “It’s not just me in here, Sans. I’m being controlled. I’m fighting it but she’s so strong and... I don’t know how to beat her.”

That was close enough. He let loose, two opposing rows of angled lances catching her full on, first in the back and then in the front.

She gasped, looking up in shock as he pinned her “I wasn’t even… I was asking for help!” She croaked, clutching at the impact points that held her in place.

“sorry, that’s close enough.”

A look of frustration crossed her face as she slumped over and her eyes began to grow distant. “Why couldn’t you have just done this when we met in the first place?” She sighed, seeming utterly disappointed in his timing.

Thirty seconds.

Fading memories.

De ja vu.

A desperate lie of mercy…

Despite the frustrated screams she gave when she threw away her weapons, she accepted his offer.

“you are sparing me?” He asked in surprise, eye sockets widening a little. His surprise turned to unease when he realized the words sounded familiar.

“Sans I need you to help me fight this!” She growled in desperation. “I am trying to fix this but killing me is not helping! You need to tell me what you know about souls and resets. How do they work?” Her whole body twitched and convulsed, seeming to fight against itself as her mouth tried to close in around the strangled words. “She’s hiding things from me!” She wailed.

He took a step back, eye beginning to reignite. “what are you playing at, pal? why should i tell you anything? you seem to have the whole reset thing figured out just fine far as i can tell.” He snapped.

“ _She_ does but _I_ don’t! Sans, I’m trying to be good but I need you to tell me what you know!”

He laughed. This was hilarious. How stupid did she think he was? He summoned a single large bone and knocked her to the ground. “ _now_ you are trying to be a good person? that’s laughable. really funny, rain. where was that kind of resolve when my _brother_ offered you mercy?” He snared her in a wreath of blue. He felt a distant pulse of warmth and ice in his clenched hand aaher soul began to glow.  He threw her against the wall with a wave of his hand. “where was that desire to do good when undyne took a blow meant for a fucking _child_?” He slammed her into the floor. “were was that change of heart when mettaton begged you to spare humanity?” Bones rose up from the floor. She failed to dodge them. They were purposely blunted but they passed right through her anyway. She shrieked and whimpered, feebly trying to pull herself free.

God, there was so much blood. Why couldn’t he look away?

Her eyes were different when she looked up at him this time. More lucid and less crazed than usual. But there was a clear degree of anger and hurt still tarnishing them.  “At least I know I tried!” She spat, blood flecking her lips. “Again and again…an..again… for an eternity.” She gasped between cries of pain. “How do you e-even know what ha…happened? Were you there _watching_?” She sobbed. “D-didn’t you hear them call out for help? Didn’t you hear _me_? Why…why didn’t y-ou come?” Her face hardened, jaded. “While you hid behind the other side of that obsidian door, I tried to save the woman you told jokes to.” Her body slipped a little further down the bones, causing her to grunt and shudder. “wh-when you failed to show up to protect your own… fucking… brother… even wh-when …you _knew_ …something was wrong- I spent a day trying to save him!”

Her limbs went lip and her head hung low, hair forming a curtain. “When Undyne tried to stop us, I lied about the direction of her attacks.  Wh…when…Metta- when Mettaton chose to distract her in the lab, I helped hide the truth about the...” A wet sigh dripped from her lips. “and now, whenever she swings, I put too much weight in one leg. Whenever she is cut, I m-m-make sure she bleeds! I-I throw my own body in the way of your attacks…again and again…and again.”

Sans backed away, feeling cold and uneasy. This was the right thing to do. _He was doing the right thing!_ She was sick. She was a freak. She was lying. She was _insane_! He could not afford to let her go. She was too powerful. Too dangerous to go free.  Yet still her words cut him. They made his chest ache.

“I…have…fought…..for an eternity….before you e-ever even th-thought…to _try_.” She snarled. Her back fell as a wet sigh rattled out of her chest and her eyes glazed over.

…Thirty seconds.

***

He did not feel that same moment of surprise when she accepted his mercy this time. Even as he held out his arms in invitation he could tell that they both knew he was lying through his teeth. He had some vague inkling of having done all this before.

It put an unexpected strain on him. He hated doing this when he knew she would just stand there and take it. But things were too far gone for him to give her a second chance.

Not now. Not here.

Why was she doing this? _Why_? This could hardly be pleasant for her. Could she no longer feel the pain he inflicted upon her? Did she get some sick sort of enjoyment out of this? The echoes in his memory promised him that this was not the case.

This had to be a new strategy that she was trying to prefect. But for the life of him he could not remember what would happen next now that she had accepted his offer. He could only wait and remember when it was too late.

He waited for her to come but she didn’t move. She cradled an injured arm close to her side and took a small step back, a nervous little laugh escaping from between her cracked lips. “I, uh, um…” She shuddered, looking around the room like someone would be standing somewhere in the back waiting to give her her line. “I will just stand here, thanks.”

He scowled. Now this was new. He could feel it. His arms slowly fell back to his sides. “what are you playing at?” He demanded, the fake sugar coating falling off of his words. There was no point in acting. She knew what came next.

“If I take another step forward, you will just kill me- oh don’t give me that look! There is no reason for you to be surprised that I know.” She closed her eyes and held up a hand, as if she would be able to block him when his eye burned yellow and skulls began to appear in the shadows once he knew his ruse was pointless. “Just, stop, please. I’m not going to move. I am unarmed. Please Sans, just give me a chance to try and explain.”

“explain?” He barked. “i think you missed your chance  to explain yourself a few hundred murders ago!”

“I have been fighting these resets just as hard as you!” She snapped, then winced as if she had been struck. She cursed under her breath and staggered forward a step, a flash of red anger in her eyes.  

The skulls began to hum and she pulled herself back. “Sorry! Sorry! She’s mad. She doesn’t want me to speak. I’m not the only soul in this body, ok? There are two of us.”

The humming quieted down a little. This felt new too. “alright, humor me. i’m listening.”

“I just want to go home, I swear. I just want this all to stop. But the other soul inside of me, she’s angry.”

He shoved his hands back in his pockets. “about what? what does this other soul supposedly want?”

“Revenge.” She shook her head. “On everything as far as I can tell. Something in her soul is missing and now she’s just…angry.”

Sans sighed. This could explain some things if it was the truth. It would explain why she was so much stronger than all the other humans had been. He had chalked it up to her being an adult but she displayed abilities that even their war history failed to mention.

Of course, if she was telling the truth it still meant she had killed at least one monster on her own to gain this soul. “so then who is it? whose soul do you have? who did you kill for it?”

Her body was twitching again. She seemed to struggle with herself. Was it all just a convincing act or was there really someone else in there? Her speech patterns had actually changed now that he thought about it. The way she carried herself was different now as well, as if she was bouncing between two different styles.

He rubbed the back of his skull. His head hurt and the crack over his eye throbbed. He just couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t afford to take her seriously.

This was a mess.

“I didn’t kill anyone. She found me. She was already dead when I fell into the Underground. I think I woke her up when I fell.”

He waved away her explanation. “interesting. not possible, but interesting.” Everyone knew that only boss monster souls persisted after death and even they didn’t last long. Of course he wouldn’t point that flaw out to her. It could be that little mistake in her story that had kept him from falling for her lie all this time.

“Do you know anything about the royal family?” She croaked, leaning on her knees and coughing. Something inside of her was putting up a nasty fight. “They had two children. One monster and one human.”

“yeah, i know the story.” He had managed to catch his breath by now. How long should he let her ramble? 

“Asriel and Chara.” She thumped her chest where the faint outline of her soul shimmered, on the cusp of being pulled back into full view for another round of combat. “I have the one called Chara.”

He lifted a disbelieving brow. “the human one?”

“Yeah. The human. She took my s-” Her words became a surprised grunt when the ribs sprung up from the stone to meet her.

Sans’s laughter was frayed as he approached her. A human absorbing a human soul? Laughable. “good job. i gotta hand it to ya lady, you almost had me that time.” He let the bones fall away, leaving her to try and remain standing without the barbed scaffolding there to support her. “right up until the end i almost wanted to believe you.” He admitted.

“I-I was telling the truth!” She stammered. “…I was telling the truth. I thought… I thought you would understand.” There were those eyes again. The ones he hated seeing. He could deal with the crazed red ones; the ones he saw in his dreams. But there was genuine hurt in her expression now. She almost looked human again.

He stood across from her, only a step or two away. “sorry, rain.” He murmured.

She began to fall forward. For once he did not bother to move. He let her fall into his arms this time, catching her in that embrace he had so often mocked her with.  She looked up at him, eyes wide but dim. That look seemed to sap him all of his energy. He just felt so _tired_.

He had done a good job. He kept telling himself that. He had finally gotten off of his boney ass and done something good. He had caught her lie- and it _was_ a lie- he had not been played for a fool. He was doing the right thing… He was stopping her... He was protecting the timeline. _She was only lying!_

So why did he still want to believe it?

He looked down at her crumpled shape and sighed. Her fingers were digging into his coat, although he did not know why. Maybe she was still trying to claw at him now that the act was over. Maybe she was trying to pull herself back up to her feet so she could go for another round.

But then she buried her face in his coat and he realized she had just been trying to pull herself a little closer, a frustrated sound catching in her throat as she clung to him. The act allowed the blood and tears he had carefully avoided for longer than he could ever be aware of, to finally stain his clothes.

He sank to his knees and she fell with him. He held her a little tighter than he felt she deserved and rested his chin on her shoulder. He felt drained as he spoke, voice far more quiet than he expected. What if there _was_ someone else in there?

He didn’t want to think about it but now the idea gnawed at his mind.

He cleared his throat and attempted to speak but it came out as little more than a ragged whisper. “listen, rain. i won’t pretend to know why you decided you needed to do all this to us. it’s probably just because you’re not right in the head. but if my brother was right… if there is some good left in you…” he stopped himself and shook his head.  “heh. hell, i really can’t see it. can’t afford to. but hopefully someone, someday, will. and things will get better for both of us because of it.” He made himself look at her and regretted it. she was still looking at him, the fog of death creeping into her eyes.

“but that person can’t be me. and that day can’t be today.” He rubbed at his sockets, squeezing them shut against the stress. “heh, god, look at me. your little lie has me all choked up! i mean, i know you are just doing all this to trick me. no one just _accidentally_ commits genocide.”

He was quiet for a moment. So was she. The unsettling sound of her flawed breathing sounded far too loud in the empty hall. “i can’t let you go rain- even if what you said was real.”  His expression became pained and his words heavy as his voice cracked. “don’t you get it? i’m not fighting to save this world. there is **_nothing_** left to save. i’m doing this so i can save the next one. i can only hope that by doing this, by trying to force you to go back… someone else will have a better chance at a happy ending than i ever did. cause i’m tellin' ya right now bud, if you knew what comes next, if i let you go, if you could see the darkness… you would understand that this _is_ mercy.  there is no other way i can help you. so rain, please, i’m begging you… don’t come back.”

***

She had thought that she was finally getting through to him. How could someone without any fucking skin be so tight lipped about everything? She could understand his reasoning but it didn’t make things any more pleasant for her. He couldn’t risk giving her information that Chara could parrot back to him later in a manipulation attempt.

Unfortunately that left her right back in the same situation she had started in. Worse off, actually.  It had taken every scrap of power she had had to maintain control of her body long enough to say all those things to him.

Damn it. It had looked like he had finally been starting to crack a little too. If she had just had the energy to keep going a little longer then maybe she could have gotten something useful out of him. But now it was too late. She was out of power and running out of time. Chara was back in control. She had been chomping at the bit ever since Sans had allowed them to get close enough to actually touch him.

She tried to mimic the little spiel a few times after seeing how far Rain had gotten with mercy but Sans remained cold and aloof. They had long since backed him up against a wall and he had dug his heels in without any thought of giving up.

The deadly dance resumed.

Chara laughed at Rain for her failed attempts, prodding her as she lay alone in the darkness, winded and weak. She sneered at her as she crawled around in the darkness of her own mind, hugging their accumulated wounds close to her body like stuffed animals to be comforted, feeling their warm sting spreading across their skin as she fought back in every feeble way she could.

She could at least give him this. She would remember the people Chara forgot. She would be the sins weighing upon her back. She would make her bleed for her crimes. As Sans had put it, she would be Chara’s karma.

She was so damn close to something; the answer just barely hidden behind a veil of smoke. Chara had gotten so angry when she had tried to learn about souls and resets. That meant she could probably reset too, if she could only figure out how. At the very least she probably had the ability to stop them.

She felt that Sans had unintentionally given her a hint. A nudge in the right direction. Not in his silence but in his actions. She had said something about her situation that was apparently so unbelievable he had deemed the conversation no longer worth having. It had been something so damming that between one breath and another he had cut her off mid-sentence with a death sentence.

She looked out of the darkness, searching for it.

What was “it”? What was she missing? Why could no one ever just tell her what it is she needed to do!

Chara was gaining ground. They had become so good at all this. In some bitter, ironic way Rain realized that she had finally learned how to dance.

Sans was growing tired. Even with Rain there to bleed them, Chara was no longer getting hit often enough for Rain to slow her down. She was creeping closer and closer to the point of no return.

Rain clawed at her head, screwing her eyes shut and screaming in frustration. What was it! What was it that Chara was hiding from her in the fog!

Her determination was important to Chara. Her continued existence was important. Her desire to live was important.

_Think! Think back to what you know. What has she said? What have they all said? You have seen every cavern, every tunnel, every room in this damn place! You know it all by heart. You should know this. It’s obvious.”_

Sans was sweating bullets. He was starting to talk again in an attempt to stall her. By now he probably knew that anything he said to them had already been said before but he seemed to hold on to the hope that if he said enough things, he may stumble upon a topic that would distract her long enough for him to get in a good strike.

Rain stepped in to give him what little help she could. She began to sing along to Chara’s song and interrupt her perfect rhythm with her own lyrics and tempo.

_I look at your grin and ponder its true meaning_

_You’re waiting for me, upon your pillar leaning_

_This day won’t die, times smothered in my  dust_

_They did not deserve this_

 

Wham! Right in the head.

Thirty seconds.

_Reset._

A little more time. A few more minutes to think. A few more seconds to rest. God she was so tired. Their body hardly slept anymore. It just reset. Over and over and over again while their minds wandered on in an endless state of awareness that never closed its eyes.

The fight resumed. Skulls, lasers, whirling bones and burning blue attacks. Impossible gravity and murals painted red, cracked stone and birds that sung along to the tune of Chara’s song.

Closer, closer, closer. His death was drawing closer.

Rain closed her eyes and thought. Past resets. The answer was scattered in the conversation of past resets.

_“You don’t get it, do you? All your runes, all your prophecies, they were about me. They have always been about me. I am the first to fall. The angel of death.”_

_“Well that’s the thing about prophecies and the like, isn’t it? They always make sure to be vague so that anyone looking to fulfill them can interpret things however they want! Maybe the Prophecy is about someone who comes to save us from_ you _!”_

Sans offered them mercy. Chara pulled out a cheap snack and ate it in front of him. Magic from the meal dripped down into her limbs and helped mend her flesh.

_“…I know you can be good again.”_

_“ Someone out there is going to stop you. People like you always go a bridge too far and fall. Someone better than yourself will strike you down.”_

_“I can still see kindness in your eyes.”_

_“So don’t act so smug, I know what you are dear. And I have lived too long to be afraid of your kind. Humans, monsters, something else- the world will always have its shadows.”_

Her mind lingered on those words. They were important.

The room was ignited with the eerie light of roaring skulls but soon even that power began to fade. Soon Sans was talking again, growing weary. She tried to distract Chara again but she only shoved Rain deeper into the darkness, going so far as to shun her ability to dull the pain in favor of better control of her movements.

_“my brother would really like to see a human. it would make him really happy if, you know, you kept pretending to be one.”_

_“I can see now that you have something dark in you. Something violent. But surely, if you try, you will do better next time_.”

The world was flickering. Gravity was in chaos. They were sliding across the floor, Sans appearing at their side and shoving bones in their path as they skidded down the impossible lane.

This was it. This was the end. He was getting ready to use his special attack.

“Come on Sans! I’m ready! Show me that special attack of yours! Blow me away with your ingenious out-of–the-box thinking!” Chara cackled. She blinked and stepped back when then barrier came up around her.

Sans laughed, oblivious to the fact that he was enacting the same scene that had ended in his death so long ago. “actually, i think it’s time for some _in-the-box_ thinking.” He gave her a tired smile and leaned up against a big chunk of broken marble.

“That’s not funny.” She droned. She was rather disappointed to have dropped her fire poker again. She had thought she had a better grip on it this time. “Fight me, little man.”

“nope. this is it. my special attack. it’s literally nothing. no violence. no combat. it is not and never will be anything. ever.  get it? i know i can’t beat you. sooner or later you’re just gonna kill me. it’s sort of your thing, isn’t it? killing people for the sake of killing. so, uh, i’ve decided you’re not gonna get to fight anymore. ever.” He taped on the barrier. The area around his finger buzzed like static.

“see, usually these things can be worn down. but i will just keep supplying it with magic.” He tapped the left side of his skull where the blue and yellow light of his eye had begun to fade back to some semblance of normalcy. “so you can swing away for as long as you like. i won’t leave and it won’t break. i won’t let you step through it. even if that means i have to stand here and watch you until the end of time, capiche?”

She flicked the barrier, her lips twitching. “Damn son, looks like you got me.” Chara declared, voice bone dry.

“yep.”

“you know, all this time I always saw the two of us as the biggest forces down here in the Underground.” She crossed her arms and sat down. Now all she had to do was wait. “The unstoppable force and the immovable object. Everyone always wonders which will win when they collide. I know I always did.” She blew her hair out of her face. “But now I know the answer.”

“oh yeah?” He managed between deep gulps of air.

“The immovable force is immovable, not impenetrable.” She grinned, showing him her bloody teeth. “So it’s still subject to erosion.”

“ah. cleaver. you must be really proud of that thought. but I’m afraid this encounter is still subject to reality. if you don’t give up and go back on your own you will eventually starve to death. i on the other hand, can port in and out fast enough to keep the grub coming before you ever get a chance to break through this thing in my absence.

“you grasping the bottom line yet, pal? you’ve finally reached the end. there is nothing left for you now. so, uh, in my personal option: the most ‘determined’ thing you can do here is to, uh, completely give up and,” he yawned a little, “go do literally anything else.”

“I think I will just wait and see where this route takes me.”

And that’s just what Chara did. She watched and waited in silence for the inevitable to happen as time trickled away before them. His eye sockets were already starting to droop in a heavy lidded fashion. He rubbed at the torn orange fabric of his scarf with a lazy hand. The smell reminded him of home and eased him into an unjustified sort of comfort.

Chara’s heart fluttered. Her dark shadow of a soul skipped with glee. She mentally  paraded around the room as Sans drifted closer and closer to sleep.

Rain’s mind raced. Think. Think! What else had everyone said?

The minutes began to stretch on in silence. Rain tried several times to make some sort of noise to startle Sans back into an alert state but Chara hushed her.  She tried to throw away their hidden knife but Chara knew that game by now.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Sans’s eyes closed. His breathing became slow and smooth and his face was left buried in the comforting folds of his scarf.

“Yes. Yes!” Chara whispered, getting up and beginning to carefully tap the barrier off towards the location of her dropped poker. “We got him.”

No. No, no, no! Flowey would not be there to destroy Asgore’s soul this time!

“He looks peaceful, doesn’t he? I wonder what he’s dreaming about?”

_“Just go. Let him sleep.”_

“After all the trouble he’s caused me? I don’t think so. Besides,” she grinned, “I think I _do_ want his coat after all.”

Chara would not awaken the human souls this time. Daniel could not drive her back.

“Should we sing to him again? It would help him rest.”

_“No!”_

There was no one left in her way. This was it.

Chara began to sing. “It’s Raining…”

Past conversations drifted back into memory.

_“You won’t give me any worthless pity! Creatures like us wouldn’t hesitate to kill each other if we got in each other’s way!”_

_“Human- no, whatever you are…”_

“It’s pouring…” She retrieved the poker and began to creep towards Sans. Their heart was racing, pounding so hard they were sure it would wake him.

_“If humans can absorb souls too then how come you never see people doing that up on the surface?”_

_“Because it’s just never worked that way. It’s like trying to force two negatively charged magnets together or something. They don’t want to be together.”_

_“You have to wake up! She’s sending you back! Fight her! Don’t give up! Stay Determined! You can beat her! She’s not even-”_

 “Ol Sans is snoring…”

_“Sooner or later you are going to have to embrace the side of you, you are running from.”_

...No one was left but her.

_“I don’t need help, Rain. I don’t want to be redeemed. Do you understand? I don’t want it. All I want right now is for you to learn and understand what my brother was too stupid to fully grasp: that in this world it will always, always be: **kill** , or **be killed**.”_

“He went to bed…”

It struck her like lightning, causing her whole existence to jolt in revelation. It all fell in together with such finality.

_“I know what you are.”_ Rain whispered.

“Soon he’ll be dead…”  Chara raised her weapon.

_“You are not a human. You chose to be a **demon**.”_

“And no one’s left to mourn him!” She stabbed at him with the poker, the barbs catching in his clothes and dragging him forward.

His eyes snapped open, flaring yellow as he twisted away from the strike and right into the awaiting reach of her knife.

“did you really think-” He saw the second strike coming but it was too late to act. His eyes widened in shock and he stumbled back, his sentence cut short. He looked down at the rapidly growing pool of blood in disbelief, unable to comprehend what he was seeing.

The rest of the world became eerily quiet when Rain fell to her knees.

She looked up at him, smiling in earnest, red blossoming across her chest. Her hands trembled against the hilt of the knife buried against her heart.

Sans continued to stare in disbelief, trying to understand what this was.

She had had him. He knew she had. As soon as he had seen the movement he had seen its echo from another timeline and had known that there was nothing he could have done to avoid it. “what ..?”

“Ha…ha. I did it Sans!” She croaked, falling to her side and wiping the blood from her lips. “I figured it out. th-the great puzz…le.”

Her voice changed. “What did you _do_!” She snarled, going from soft to demonic in a flash.

Tears slid out of her half closed eyes. “I stopped you.” She sighed.

He dropped to his knees next to her. Those eyes, that voice, they were different. This version was different. Past conversations that had not happened in this timeline began to prick at the back of his mind.

She was laughing and crying, body spasming. “I’m s…o sor…ry S-ans. I was too afraid to face her for s-so long. I…I let this happen.” She reached out to him, searching for his presence in the growing dark.

Despite everything he had seen, everything he felt or struggled to feel up to this point, he still found himself reaching out to hold her hand. He still remembered that once upon a time, somewhere long ago, he had seen this frightened face before and had hoped to be her friend.

His acceptance of her offered hand seemed to calm her.

“what the hell have you done kid? what is this?” He breathed, inching closer to her, eyes locked on the knife in her chest.

“I made a real-ly ba…d decision.” She sighed. Her other hand, stained with blood, reached out to him; painting the cracks against his eye red. The color brought back horrible memories for the both of them but Rain smiled. At least this time it was her blood instead of his. “You have done enough. Now… it’s my turn to f-f…ace her.” Her grip on his hand tightened and a determined light burned in her dying eyes. Her voice became more stable for a brief moment. “I will make things right. I will bring them all back. I promise. This time… will… be different.”

_“I will make you pay for this! Do you really think you have changed anything? I will just get him next time!”_ Chara screeched, furious at having all her progress ruined.

_“There won’t be a next time.”_ Rain replied with steady resolve. A smug smile slipped across her lips. Her tone was rueful and mirthless when the darkness took them. _“Don’t you get it? If you won’t live by my rules, then we will die by yours. Don’t you remember Chara? **It’s kill or be killed.”**_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**_End of Arc two: What We Are Made Of._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looks like Rain has found a way to reset.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
> Welp! That's the end of arc two! It was the shortest of the three arcs- arc three is a friggin monster. I will break from posting for two weeks or so while me and my sister begin prep on the next arc. Hope you guys have enjoyed this one. :)


	29. This Time Will Be Different/ Nothing will change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~This Time Will Be Different~~ / **Nothing will change**  
>  Sans wakes up and has a hard time shaking off his lingering feelings of dread.   
> Cracks are showing up in more places than just the void.  
> Rain puts her new destructive plan into motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew! I can finally start posting again! (Although this thing is so big there will probably be mini intermissions) No cover art for arc three yet. I'm working on it but i'm not sure if i should add it when its done or save it for a later chapter... hmmm.  
> well enjoy!

**Arc three: Penance**

 

 

 

The soul seemed to linger out in front of him for an unusual amount of time. It hovered above the still-warm corpse of the human; trembling and starting to crack. The bright red parts seemed to be trying to hold itself together and stay in one place while the darker shades seemed to try and force the soul to snap apart and disperse.

Something told him this was different. Something told him it usually didn’t take this long for her soul to break.

Still holding the human’s limp hand in one of his, Sans’s slipped his other hand out of his pocket and reached towards the soul.  A cautious, tempting hope raced through him. Could he take it? Dare he try?

Responsibility fought against selfishness. If he took it maybe he would regain control of the timeline. This would be her final death. Whatever small fraction of monsters had survived her attack would be allowed to live out the rest of their lives in peace, their crippled civilization fading out with a sigh instead of a scream. Their numbers may have been crippled but the Overworld would be safe.

Would the timeline be as well?

His hand trembled as it touched the edges of the soul. It was warm. Soft in a nonphysical sort of way that was hard to explain. Yet there were veins of bitter cold that ran through it and bit at is knuckles until it made his bones ache.

If she reset, if he _let_ her reset, he would get his brother back. He would get everyone back. There would still be hope for monster kind.

...Maybe.

If she was actually capable of mercy.

In the end his choice was made for him. In his indecisiveness he had done what he always did best: absolutely nothing. The darkness won and the heart shattered, scattering like brilliant ruby raindrops that hissed into a fine mist and drifted away into nothing.

He stood in solemn silence for a moment before shaking his head in defeat. “heh. guess you made the choice for me, huh?” He tucked his hands back into his pockets and looked down the hallway, waiting to see if she would return. “guess for a skeleton i can still be pretty spineless.” 

Thirty seconds.

Would this time be any different?

His heart sank when it came. The pull of a soundless vacuum that began to drag him back. At first everything was white, and then it all faded to black. It was sort of like moving through the world’s code when he teleported but this version was far more violent and all-consuming. He had no say in where it would spit him back out again.

It was lasting longer than usual. At least that’s what his gut would be telling him if he had one.

Maybe he really was being sent all the way back this time.

The darkness was soon painted with familiar murals that began to move.  He was watching the world rewind, occasionally one view being disrupted by another. Overlapping moments fought to be seen, ramming into one another like glitching, melting photos.

He watched the death of the human unfold in reverse a hundred times over from a thousand different fragments of time.  He watched her dodge all of his attacks in backwards motions, wounds healing as she moved farther and farther back down the hall in reverse.

Then everything began to overlap and play out of order or all at once.

She was in Waterfall, fighting Undyne.

Now she was walking out of the room where she had killed Mettaton.

 She was pushing her way into Alphys’s lab.

Now they were in Snowdin.

He shook her hand dozens of times. Sometimes he had a whoopee cushion and she laughed. Other times he forgot to bring it and he saw the madness in her eyes only when it was too late to save himself.

He heard her laugh as she cut him across the chest and he felt his skull crack against the rough bark of a tree.

_“I can’t believe how easy this is! I can’t believe you are so Hopeless!”_

He watched his brother die over and over again. Tears streaming down the human’s face as she let out a wild sort of laughter and screamed at something only she could see.

With a grand sort of finality he saw himself in the golden hall one last time. He felt the sharp pain of a knife cutting deep into his chest, a warm red spilling over his hands as he began to fall. He gasped, looking up at her as she both laughed and cried over her victory and he pitched forward into the darkness. He heard a dry sigh drift past him like dead leaves in the wind, her words continuing to echo even as the whole world faded to black. 

_“This time will be different.”_

***

She was in the dark nothingness between time and death again. Chara was a boiling mass of fury beside her, racing down that long dark tunnel towards the pinprick of light that signified their reset.

Rain pulled back. She did not race her this time. She did not struggle to remain neck and neck with her in an attempt to be the first to seize control of their body. Instead she dug her heels in; drawing herself deeper into the blackness that Chara had once warned her would always be waiting at her back.

Chara stopped, jerking to a halt like a dog that had reached the end of its leash. She pawed at the nothingness in confusion before turning back to Rain, red pinpricks of light staring at her in horrified realization.

They were connected. They had always been connected. Chara had latched onto her soul to preserve herself. She couldn’t go back to that body unless Rain went with her.

_“No! What do you think you are doing! You can’t just drag us back to the lifeless dark like this! We had him!”_

_“And now we are letting him go.”_

_“If you stay in here you will die!”_ She snarled, turning against Rain and attacking her, their ethereal shapes coiling and uncoiling in fits of rage and smoke as Chara tried to pull her closer to the light while Rain leaned deeper into the darkness.

_“So what if I die? I was such an idiot! I was so afraid of spending the rest of my existence in pain, unable to move or speak, that I sold my soul to avoid it! But isn’t that what happened to me anyway? No freedom, no agency. Just my own painful, personal hell where I get to see someone use my body to kill people. Hah! I choose to face the darkness over watching you slander my life.”_

_“I. Wont. **Let you**!” _ In a storm of imagined teeth and nails they tumbled, closer and closer to the light; Chara’s Determination to live pulling them near the threshold.

In a surge of defiance Rain pulled back, determined to stay dead and thus dragging them back into the pit of gaping cracks-and-nothingness.

She did not know how much power Chara had over her. Rain could not force her to leave her body but she could still fight back. Everyone said that a human soul was the strongest kind of soul out there. Chara had been human once but something had been broken inside of her. Like her brother, she was incomplete. So maybe, just maybe, Rain could beat her.

_“All this time you have been feeding on my fears. You worked so hard to make me afraid to die. You knew! You knew that I could do this to you! You knew that the only way to stay in control was to keep me afraid. You let me fight the outward battle so I would ignore the literal demon in my head!”_

Their save point was drifting farther and farther away. Like she trying to pry something sticky from her hands, Rain peeled herself away from that connection. She poured all of her Determination into letting that save point go. The light of the golden hall faded away.

 Good. She would drag them back to the very beginning then. She would pull them all the way back to before they had hurt anyone, even if she had to get there by dragging Chara across the darkness one sluggish inch at a time. They would make this right. They would die were the rain fell.

_“It’s too late, Rain. Your soul is mine. Your body is mine. You wanted someone to take you by the hand and make all the hard choices for you. This is what you get. It comes with the package! You don’t get the only say in this choice.”_

Chara’s struggle became more and more frenzied. Rain could feel it now, the fear that had once been hidden behind her own. Like Asriel, she was afraid to die. She was afraid to find out what would happen to her soul if it was allowed to continue rotting. She was not yet strong enough to survive the void on her own.

Rain tried to cast her out. She tried to break their connection but it was beyond her power. Chara’s Determination to hang on was too strong.

_“Take us back!”_ Chara wailed, leaning towards the distant sensation of falling rain. There was only the true reset left to turn to now. Chara was inching closer to it, running from the darkness and its darker cracks. Cracks that in turn were gaining their own gaps of deeper nothingness as the two of them lingered too long in a place that they should not be.

Falling.

Falling…

Falling…

They were stuck in limbo, Rain clinging to the darkness while Chara leaned into the light.  But eventually Rain slipped and they fell into familiarity once more.

Chara celebrated a brief moment of triumph, believing to have once again regained control of the situation. Rain cursed as they collapsed into the familiar bed of flowers and felt raindrops pepper their hair.

 So it seemed there were some limits she still could not pass. She could not will herself to stay dead while her other half wished to live. 

That was fine for the time being. She knew of other ways to fight back now. She finally knew that she was not powerless. She had just been trying to find her solution in the wrong direction all this time.

_“Go on then. Try again if you want. Go pick up a weapon. It won’t help you anymore.”_ Rain thought, her voice calm and cold.

She had done it. She may not have stopped them from reincarnating but she had brought them all the way back to the beginning with her own power. She had had to kill herself to do it but by now that was nothing extraordinary to her. It was simply a newly realized advantage.

Chara was strong. Their power nearly even. But now Rain knew two important things to keep Chara from overpowering her.

One: so long as she remained calm, Chara could not feed off of her fears and turn her Determination against her.

Two: every weapon Chara picked up from now on was a weapon she was placing directly in Rain’s hand.

If Chara gave her an opportunity and a reason to kill herself again, she would do it. It didn’t take that much effort to skew the direction of an attack like she had done with the knife. 

She did not have to wait for a hero to stop them. She did not have to throw herself in front of someone else’s attack. Not when Chara was so willing to place a weapon in the hand of her most dangerous enemy.

Chara may be able to block some of her attempts but not all of them. And if each one sent them farther and farther into the darkness then perhaps over time it would swallow them for good.

Heh. That was another problem Chara couldn’t just solve by stabbing: the growing darkness. Chara’s abuse of resets was going to swallow them up one day and Rain would let it if she had to.

A single flower rose above all the others, jarring Rain from her scheming.

Chara turned her dark eyes upon her brother. Her fists were clenched and her jaw set but it was not by her will that they did so; it was Rain’s.

_“I understand now. I see what it was you had been hoping I would never find._ _I’m the one enemy in this whole damn world you can never get rid of. The only person you can’t push away. The only problem you can’t solve by stabbing. If you hurt me, you hurt yourself. If you kill me, you kill yourself._

_“I’m ready to face death if I have to, Chara. It’s worth it if it stops you. If it’s kill or be killed then let’s go. Let’s have a fight to the death. Because even if you kill me, **it still means I win**.”_

_***_

The world flickered.

The world flickered.

The world flickered.

Sans’s eyes snapped open and he fell forward with a gasp, hand shooing up to his chest where the familiar wound should have been. He continued to fall, arms flailing against the constricting cocoon of sweaty sheets. He fell out of bed with a dull thud.

He groaned and held his head in his hands, eye glowing and alert as a fading torrent of half-remembered images continued to swim around in his head. His skull felt like it was going to split open.

He scanned the room with wild eyes, ready to defend himself at the slightest hint of movement. It took him a moment to realize where he was.

Home. He was back home. He wasn’t in the king’s castle anymore.

He took in a long, slow breath and rubbed at his eyes. Already everything was fading. He tried to hold on to the memories. They were too important to loose. He couldn’t afford to forget! But they slipped between his fingers like countless grains of sand. Soon he no longer really remembered why it was so important to remember. After all, it had just been another bad dream.

This thought filled him with an overwhelming sense of relief that he couldn’t quite justify or understand. It was both frustrating and exhilarating.

He had lost his shirt some time during the night amidst all his tossing and turning and now the sheets were all tangled up and snagged on his vertebrae. He pulled the sheets away with a rough hand and felt along his ribs, desperate to reassure himself that he was still in one piece.

He winced when a finger scraped against a strange groove in his bones. He looked down and scowled at the long, smooth scar that stretched from the top of his left shoulder to the bottom right side of his ribcage. “the hell?” He muttered. It looked like he had lost a fight against a chisel. It looked pretty old but it was still tender to the touch.

It made his soul twist with worry. When had he gotten _that_? It looked like it had been serious so why couldn't he remember? And good _god_ why did his head hurt so much?

He finished disentangling himself from his sheets. There were a few small holes in the fabric where things hand snagged on his bones during the night. Great.

Somewhere outside of his room the floorboards creaked and a door swung open. The realization that he was not alone hit him like a ton of bricks. He was just so incredibly _relieved_ to know this.

“Sans! Sans are you awake yet?” Papyrus called, knocking on the door before pushing it open just wide enough for him to poke his head through the gap. Papyrus looked a little more worn down that usual. “You are going to be late for work of you don’t- oh!” He pushed the door all the way open and the tired look he had been wearing retreated until the only hints of its existence were the  worn out shadows resting under his eyes. He beamed with approval when he saw Sans. “Wowie, you are already up!”

Sans sprung to his feet and rushed over to his brother, wrapping his arms around him and hugging him as tight as he possibly could.

He was fine. He was still here. Papyrus was ok- why was he so relieved to know that? Papyrus was always fine!  Better than fine, actually.

Papyrus grunted in surprise upon impact, having to brace himself against the threshold of the door to keep from being knocked over by the embrace. He returned the hug. “Um, Sans, is everything ok?”

Fragments of the dream boiled back up to the surface.

_A red scarf dancing in the wind, missing boots, a strike across the neck-_

He squeezed his eyes shut against the memory.  He was here. His brother was still here.  Everything and everyone was still right where he had left them. It had not been real...right?

...Heh.

Papyrus’s voice dropped to a sad murmur. “Were you having bad dreams again?”

Sans pulled away, hiding his worry behind a smile as he always did. “nah bro, i’m good. no big deal, promise.”

Papyrus looked down at him with a critical eye. The dim light that crept in from the window highlighted the top of Sans’s skull and Papyrus’s eyes widened. “Oh my god! San! What happened?”

Sans’s smile faltered a bit when Papyrus knelt down by him and took his head in his hands; gently turning it this way and that so he could see something in the dim light.

“what? what is it?”

Papyrus reached back behind him to flick on the light. A moment later Sans could feel his brother’s weak healing magic gently prodding at him. “Did you do this when you fell out of bed? What did you hit your head on?”

Sans pushed his hands away, eye twitching against the less than comfortable feel of magic trying to pull something back together. “what are you talking about bro? i’m fine.”

“You are many things Sans but fine is not one of them! You should go visit a healer. I can’t heal this on my own. You are very fortunate that you are still standing!”

Sans finally ran a hand over his skull in confusion and winced when his fingertips brushed against a thick crack in his skull.

Oh. So _that’s_ why he had a splitting headache. His head was literally split.

_“turn around and shake my hand.”_

_“It’s raining, it’s pouring…”_

_The snow was red. Why was it so, so red?_

Sans slipped between Papyrus and the door, hurrying to find a mirror despite his brother’s worried objections at having been brushed aside.

Sure enough when he got a good look at himself his soul pretty much dropped out from under him with a sense of dread. He traced the cracks in his skull, the two main cracks making a lightning pattern across his temple and cheek while a spider web of much smaller lines decorated the edges of his eye like little messy scribbles.

It was sore to the touch but the wound itself was old. There was no magic or dust leaking from the crack. He could even see a few marks around the tail end of the cracks where things had fused back together in an ugly, improper way; like a broken nose that had never been properly set.

He stared at himself in the mirror, focusing on the darkness beyond the pricks of light in his sockets. He could feel the heavy weight of dread and dejavu resting on his shoulders again. He had no solid memory of when this had happened to him and yet the wound was old.

He stifled a melancholy chuckle. Damn. He was starting to look a lot like the last guy who had gotten himself mixed up in too much time stuff. Maybe this was bound to happen. A result of him trying too hard to cling to things that continued to evade proper memory.

“Sans, where in the world do you think you are going? Don’t run away from this!” Papyrus chided, having caught up to him again.

Sans took a second to clear his mind.

Ok. Something was new. Something was happening. Something weird and bad and he wasn’t sure what. Those dreams he sort-of-knew-were-not-dreams had something to do with it. But every time he tried to focus in on them they dispersed into the realm of vague thought. Trying to understand them just chased them away. The only way he could really grab a hold of them at all was to look the other way and let the memories brush up against him on their own.

This whole situation was new and weird. He needed time to think and he needed to assure his brother he wasn’t going to turn to dust.

He rolled his eyes in a nonchalant way and turned to his brother, suddenly all smiles. “ah, crap. now i remember how i got this.” He snapped his fingers together- well, it was more of an odd clacking sound than an actual snap- “i got a little carried away at grillby’s the other night and slipped on the ice on my way home.” He brushed past Papyrus and hurried downstairs to snatch his coat up off the couch, Papyrus still squawking his objections and worries at his back as he went.

“Sans that looks horrible! You need to go get that fixed!”

“one of the guys at the bar already tried to patch me up but i guess he didn’t do a good job making it look pretty. s’fine though. promise. looks worse than it is. just a little sore s’all.” He pulled up the hood of his coat to hide the worst of it, ducking his head to employ the shadows to help camouflage the mark.

“It looks really bad, Sans.” Papyrus objected, voice growing soft and worried. “Maybe... maybe you shouldn’t go in to work today. You should visit someone who can heal you properly. I’m sure Undyne will understand. I can call her for you and let the dogs know you won’t be in today.”

“nah bro, i’m all good to go. doesn’t even hurt unless i mess with it.” _or breathe... or blink._

Sans’s desire to work only seemed to add kindling to the fire for Papyrus. “but you always try to find reasons to take sick days! You said you loved having so many jobs _because_ of all the extra sick days!”

Sans shrugged. He wanted to get out of here. He needed to go check some things. A voice in the back of his head kept nagging at him; telling him that he had a very limited amount of time in which he could do anything worthwhile. How long would these half-feelings be around to guide him before they faded away?

Then as if he had hit a physical wall, his brief moment of determination drained away into realization and clarity, causing his shoulders to sag.

What if he had already done all of this a hundred times before?  These scars were not accidents. They were just the latest thing to seep through the cracks as time continued to tear and fray around them.

Just because he could not tell for sure if the dreams were actually linked to the time distortions or not didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed that time had stopped working properly a long time ago.

His hands, which had been holding the hood of his coat down over his eyes, now slowly slid away and sank back into his pockets in defeat.

What was the point? Whatever he was planning to do had obviously never worked in the past. They were in the heart of it now. The heart of the chaos. He already knew how it ended: darkness. If his past selves, the versions of him that had still had hope couldn’t save them, then what good would he be now?

He was a tired bag of bones with one measly HP and a history of “dreams” that were apparently so violent and futile that his scars were starting to transcend time and reality. He had very little left in him. Hell, he had just woken up and already he felt like he needed a nap. He didn’t feel like he had slept at all last night.

“yeah, ok. i guess i can take a half day or something.” He grunted. “maybe i will call someone about the crack. you know, to keep you from worrying.” He winked.

Papyrus smiled in approval. Papyrus always seemed to be smiling. Real smiles too, not the tacky forced ones Sans usually wore. Yet still there were troubling shadows under his eyes. “Alright. I will be sure to let everyone know. Do try to take care of yourself while I am gone.” He chirped.

Those words hit at Sans like a dagger in the chest.

While I’m gone.

_When_ I’m gone.

_The bright color of his scarf led him to him. It danced around in the wind in a mockery of true life. Why did it move so much in a world that felt so still? Why did it mock him with its animated movements while its owner lay at its feet as nothing more than dust?_

_Why could he only manage to feel numb?_

“what do you mean? You won’t be gone long right? You just have to go check your puzzles.” Sans asked, his voice a little more on edge than he would have liked.

Papyrus scowled at this unusual misunderstanding. “Of course. Although, since you will not be on your patrol route I shall take it upon myself to do both our rounds for today. As a future Royal Guardsmen it is my duty to maintain the line! So perhaps I shall be a little later than usual tonight.” He took his scarf from the coat rack and wrapped it around his neck. He put his hands on his hips and took in a deep breath, puffing out his chest. “I can feel it brother! Today will be the day. I just know it. Today feels like it’s going to be different! Today will be the day I find a human!”

Sans smiled a little but said nothing. It had been years since a human had shown up in the Underground, so the twisting pit of dread in his stomach probably had nothing to do with his brother’s mention of humans... right? Sans tried to remember his dreams. Who had he been fighting in them anyway? 

He pushed the thought away, not wanting to think too much about it. “go get 'em, bro.” He murmured without enthusiasm.

“I will!” Papyrus all but kicked open the door in his enthusiasm and hurried off.

The smile did not exactly slip from Sans’s face once he was gone, it simply became empty and slack.

He checked himself over in the mirror again, carefully prodding at the crack. He considered going to get it healed properly but it really wasn’t hurting that much anymore. The thought of either making an official appointment or going all the way out to visit a friend who could take a look at it for him just felt exhausting. He was holding himself together just fine and he really wanted to just go back to bed and chase after that proposed nap now.

But that annoying, nagging thread of _something_ kept tugging on him; urging him to do something this time. _Anything!_ Even if he didn’t think it would help.

He usually didn’t have too many nightmares during naps but he was not quite ready to flip the proverbial coin and take his chances just yet, so he shuffled around the house for a bit. He dug around in the fridge and flipped through the channels as he tried to figure out what it was that was tickling at the back of his mind, trying to remind him that he had something to do.

Whatever had really happened last night, the journey must have been a strange one. There were many points in his past where he had been able to notice the resets but this was the first time the feelings and the memories had managed to linger around for more than a minute or two without something familiar there to jog his memory.

He rubbed his hands against his face to try and chase away the shadows under his eyes.  Alright, he would go do something. He just needed to do some busywork to help take the edge off of his lingering anxiety. Then he could hit the hay. The time distortions were much easier on him and far less jarring if he was sleeping when they happened.  But sleep didn’t seem to be an option for him just yet. So he decided it was time to fire up the machine again.

He went upstairs to grab the key, considering and then dismissing the option of finding a new shirt to wear. Instead he just zipped up his coat and shoved the key in his pocket. He contemplated grabbing his sneakers but in the end he just shuffled into a pair of fuzzy slippers and wandered outside.

He crunched through the snow, the harsh frozen layers of ice underneath scraping at his ankles as he went. It had been a while since he had been out here so the path was all filled in with snow and ice. His brother had been hounding him to shovel the walkway for the past few days. He should probably get around to doing that soon.

Eh, maybe later. If the week progressed properly. Which it probably wouldn’t.

He flicked on the light in the basement. The smell of dust, paper and ozone were heavy in the air. It was cold enough for him to see his breath but it wasn’t harsh enough to bother him. Skeletons were pretty numb to the cold and by now he was used to it anyway.

He blinked against the glare of the overhead lights reflecting against the smooth glossy tiles of the floor and walls. He ignored the charts and notes left stuck to the wall by his desk and stepped over several mounds of old papers. In a practiced motion he went up to the old machine pushed up against the far wall and flipped up the edge of the sheet draped over its frame. He tossed the sheet overhead until it snagged on something and gave him a drooping window to work under.

The years had not been kind to the machine. _He_ had not been kind to it. Where once he had gone through great pains to ensure that the machine had remained pristine and well maintained to the best of his ability, he had long since let the machine- much like himself- go.

Exposed chips and wires stuck out of many of the panels and compartments. The the center chamber of the beast had boxes of old parts stack up inside of it and various compartments that should have been sealed away were instead left exposed with missing bolts. The display screen had a thick coat of dust on it.

“alright. let’s see if you still work.” He had to bend over and dig around a bit to find the startup button. Then he had to rearrange a lot of crap to plug things back in when the scanner didn’t start right away. Finally with a tired groan the scanner grumbled to life and the screen lit up.

Sans gave the monitor a pat. “i know buddy. me too.”

After the long startup process he typed in a few commands that still managed to manifest in the form of muscle memory despite all the time that had passed- and his lack of mussels.

Unfortunately the core functions of the machine were beyond his ability to repair but some of the minor systems still clung to life and managed to work on a good day. Those systems acknowledged his request and he dropped some paper in the nearby printer then left the computer to do its thing.

He tried to clean things up a bit while he waited but he just ended up reshuffling everything in a way that neither improved or worsened the situation. 

He fidgeted in the near silence of the droning machine. It would be several hours before he got any accurate readings.

He didn’t really expect anything to have changed since the last time he had read the charts. He really shouldn’t be looking at them at all. He had promised himself not to after the stress had started to make his brother worry.

He checked the printer to make sure it still had plenty of ink.

It did. He always made sure it did. Yet every time the readings came out blank he always had to check again anyway.

He paced around in the crowded space for a while longer, opening up old drawers and looking through the dusty notes and pictures inside. He found an old drawing and his teeth pressed together in a bitter way. The words “do not forget” had been scribbled off in the corner of the page. His soul twisted and he quickly tucked the scrap back into its folder.

Soon a heavy realization settled upon his shoulders, brought on by the memory of the drawing.

He didn’t know what would happen this reset but he had to brace himself for the worst.

Sans sat down, pulled out a mostly blank piece of paper and began to write a note; listening to the machine whirr and beep behind him as he poured out his thoughts in black ink and then stashed the letter away in his pocket.

Something big was coming. He didn’t remember who or what or why but he knew things were probably going to get pretty bad soon. He had to prepare for that. He had to prepare Papyrus for that.

Once the note was written and it became all the more clear that waiting for the scan to finish would be a waste of time that brought him no peace, Sans’s mind began to wander towards other prospects.

He could go take that nap now. No reason to put it off.

But that nagging feeling wouldn’t let him do it. He should go be with his brother instead.

He had really missed him.

Why had he missed him? Probably not a good idea to pry too much at that question. But something important was coming and he should be there with him when it arrived.

He went back inside to put on a proper shirt and examine the new-old scars again. Honestly he should be dead. Anything strong enough to leave marks like that should have dusted him. But he supposed he had skipped the whole taking damage part of the scar making process this time.

He stepped out into the snow; eyes following his brother’s tracks down the street. The snow had not been able to fill them in yet.

A voice echoed around inside his skull as he headed towards the forest. Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was someone else’s. It was probably nothing more than a sweet whispered lie but dammit if it didn’t make him curious.

_“This time will be different.”_


	30. Something to Lose/ Something to Prove

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Something to Lose** / ~~Something to Prove~~  
>  The human lets slip some vital information.  
> Sans tries to get his brother to leave Snowdin before the past can repeat itself.

Despite all the pent-up tension, it turned out to be a pretty good day. Papyrus scolded him for not going to see a healer but it seemed like after a few hours he started to forget why it was such a big deal. Sans had a little trouble remembering why as well. So once they had gotten all the nagging out of the way, the two brothers got to enjoy a pretty decent afternoon in each other’s company.

Sans really didn’t care much about being a sentry. He had only taken the job because his brother had pushed him to do it. There had been a time when he had taken things a little more seriously though. He had even made and maintained his own series of puzzles once upon a time. Well, they were traps more than they were puzzles to be honest. Nasty ones. There were reasons why he had gotten a real sentry station while his brother had made a mock-up of his own out of cardboard.

Papyrus was ambitious and devoted but he would sooner offer a violent criminal a hot beverage and a place to stay than report or engage them in combat- even if it was for self-defense. He doubted his brother could ever bring himself to intentionally hurt anyone and everyone knew it.

Sans on the other hand had had far fewer qualms about doing his job in the past. Of course all of that _was_ in the past now. Old memories, old obligations, old reasons.

Between realizing that standing in the way of the anomaly only ever made the bad timelines stretch out longer and having made a new friend on the other side of the door who had made him promise to help any lost humans that came his way- his devotion to his traps and puzzles had rotted away.

A little voice in the back of his mind nagged him to reconsider now. _Go recalibrate those puzzles like Papyrus asked._ It encouraged. _Go make sure the area is secure. Move before it’s too late._

He took a deep breath. Nah. If he fixed them up now wouldn’t that just mean a faster reset and an obligation to go recalibrate them _again_?

Besides, whatever it was that was messing everything up out there would only be caught off guard once or twice before traps became a waste of time. Hell, it probably already had all this stuff figured out by now anyway.

So Sans chose to instead spend the day patrolling with his brother. Papyrus was quite pleased to see him acting so lively for once. Seeing him call off his half day to return to work early was a rare occasion and it made Papyrus proud of his brother’s devotion to his station.

Sans listened to his brother chatter about all of his perfectly maintained puzzles, tuning out the nagging buzz when he insisted that Sans go recalibrate his own.

They visited a few sites where Papyrus thought future puzzles could be set up, then had lunch together at Papyrus’s makeshift sentry station. Sans didn’t bother to mention that the spaghetti was nearly frozen to the point of no return.

Sans just… really appreciated the quiet day. Even though he still felt tired. Even though he felt a looming sense of dread hanging over him; warning him that this was one of the few good days they had left to enjoy.

He tried to ignore it. It was nice to hear his brother’s voice - even when he was shouting at him for making bad puns.

Sans even got his brother to slack off with him a little bit, making snow skelptures and demolishing snow poffs together. Yet during all this, Sans’s eyes often wandered off towards the distant tree line where forgotten memories seemed to linger in the forest like shadows.

“What is it? Did you see lesser dog goofing off again?” He brother asked, straightening from his act of snow sculpting and bracing his hands against his hips like an impatient mother. 

“nah. i was just space’n out.”

It had been a while since he had checked in with his station. They had been in this clearing for quite some time now.  He sort of had this gut feeling that he should keep an eye on the station near the door for the next few days...

He shook the feeling off for a while longer. It was calming to just have a lazy day like this. But soon their synthetic day began to draw to a close and the magic lights overhead started to dim with the hints of the oncoming evening. Their shift was over and Papyrus turned his attention towards home with a sigh. “Darn. I was so sure we would find a human today!”

Worry tugged at the corner of Sans’s smile. For a split second he recalled a familiar face, but then it was gone. “maybe next time, bro.”

“Well, I suppose we should start heading back. If I stay out much longer I will be late for my lessons with Undyne, and then there will be no hope of a home cooked meal tonight.”

“that’s all right. we could always hit grillby’s on the way home.” Sans said with a wink.

“You know I don’t like grease!” Papyrus wailed.

“come on, a little grease could be good for all those cranky joints of yours.” He teased, nudging him playfully with his elbow.

Papyrus narrowed his eyes at him. “I’m not sure whether or not that counts as a pun.”

Sans shrugged. “go on without me. i kind of want to stay out a little longer.”

Papyrus blinked in surprise. “Are you sure? You hardly fell asleep at all today.”

He kicked at the remains of an already demolished snow poff. “i figure i should just try and make up for all the days i have been slacking off on recently, ya know? thought i would fill in for dogamy and let em skip a shift.”

Papyrus practically glowed with joy. “Sans! You have no idea how happy this makes me! I am so proud of your increased work ethic! When you get home I will be sure to have an extra special batch of spaghetti waiting for you!” He gave him a crushing hug. “Oh, and you will be sure to call me if anything interesting happens, right? If you find a human I don’t want to miss it!”

The edges of Sans’s smile fell. There was an uneasy knot writhing inside of him. “um, about that.” He freed himself from the hug and took a step back. “i've been thinking… Papyrus, what if the human wasn’t…good?”

Papyrus scowled. “What do you mean?”

“what if nothing has changed since they locked us all away down here? what if humans have, i dunno, gotten worse? what if they are just… _bad_?”

“Oh.” His brother’s voice was unusually soft. He rubbed at his jaw in thought. The lingering shadow that Sans had occasionally noticed haunting his brother’s face returned. “Well, I guess we really don’t know what it’s like up there on the surface anymore. I suppose it could be that bad. But then maybe that’s why a human would come down here in the first place!” He brightened at this idea. “Maybe they came down here because they heard stories about us and they want to make nicer friends!”

Sans couldn’t hide his pained expression when he gripped his brother by the forearms. “but what if that’s not true, Paps? what if she has just come down here to hurt us? what if she just thinks it’s fun? what then?”

Papyrus blinked. “She?”

“she, he, it, they, them!” Sans waved away his choice of words with impatience. “look, i just worry, y’know? what would you do if you met a human and they turned out to be really violent? what if they didn’t want to make friends? what if they hurt people you cared about?”

Papyrus thought about this in a long stretch of silence. When he spoke again each word was carefully considered before he said them. “I suppose I would be very sad. Disappointed that they chose to hurt people when they did not have to.” Perhaps by some trick of poor timing and bad luck, Papyrus looked off in the direction of Sans’s sentry station over by the door to the Ruins. His brow was furrowed in thought and his eyes looked distant and sad. “But maybe they were just scared. Maybe they were just lonely and angry and were trying to get it all out and hurt someone by mistake in the process? Maybe a human like that would just need some help remembering how to be good again.” He looked down at his brother and smiled. “Maybe they just need a friend. A friend like the Great Papyrus!”

Sans’s tried to look optimistic but the undercurrent of defeat was straining to make itself known. “you are pretty great, bro.” He sighed in quiet defeat.

“I know I am!”

“heh. well go ahead and get over to undyne’s and work on that special spaghetti of yours. not really sure when i will be back so be sure to save some for me.”

They bid each other farewell and Papyrus raced away, scarf dancing in the wind as his long legs carried him across the snow. Sans watched him go, a rock nestled in his stomach.

Papyrus never changed. Sans wished he could have that sort of optimism. Then again part of him wished Papyrus wasn’t always so determined to see the good in everyone. It would have saved them both a lot of grief if he didn’t.

Sans ran into Dogamy and Dogaressa on his way to his station and let them know what the deal was before teleporting over to the little station and settling down.

He enjoyed the silence for a while, the only sound being the breeze whispering soft nothings through the trees. There were even a few breaks in the fog cover hanging overhead, allowing him to see a few of the distant glowing crystals on the ceiling: their improvised stars.

He loved the stars. He had always wanted to see the real ones someday. He had been told that the real ones moved across the sky and got brighter and dimmer as the days and months trickled past. He marveled at the thought of the stars being so high up and so far away that people could use them to navigate from one stretch of land to the next. You couldn’t do that in the caverns. Once you left the room they were in or rounded a corner, that was it. No more stars.

He had heard that some of the real stars were so famous people even made names and stories for them. How cool was that?

Sans had a favorite star in the Underground. It was right above his Snowdin station and really dim. It was kind of blue and overshadowed by a big green crystal a few feet to its side.

He had made a lot of big wishes on the big green star in the past but they had never come true.

The little blue star however, who he had named Gilbert, was pretty chill. Since Gilbert was a little star he imagined it could only handle little wishes. But the star didn’t often let him down when he made those small requests.

When he asked for an undisturbed nap, the discovery of a snack he had forgotten about or a cool pair of socks or something, Gilbert always delivered.

Gilbert was a cool star.  

Sans swung his feet back and forth as he looked up at the dim star. “hey gillbert. nice night out isn’t it? didn’t think i’d see you out this early.” He yawned, a cloud of breath rising up between his fingers. “I got another wish for you. if you are up to the challenge. i wish my lil bro will get home safely tonight and make his best spaghetti yet. think you can handle it?”

The crystal flickered and shined as it always did. Sans took this as some sort of answer.

“thanks, buddy.” He drummed his fingers against the table, teeth clacking together as he considered saying something else. He sighed. “ah, who am I kidding. that’s not my real wish.” He looked back up at the star. “What I really wish is that my brother will be ok. I wish I knew the right words to say to Papyrus to get him to leave and find somewhere safe to be when things go bad this time.”

The crystal star danced and guttered and a wisp of fog threatened to hide the dim light completely.

Sans tugged his coat a little closer and rested his head against his folded arms; his breath warming the cuffs of his sleeve. The stress of going through the day waiting for the other shoe to drop was beginning to weigh down on him and ease his eyes shut. “eh, its ok gil. i understand. it’s a pretty big wish, isn’t it? i get it. trust me, i  do. keeping him safe is a big job for a little guy... and you are just a little star.”

***

He listened for a while. His eyes reduced to slits while he searched for the sounds and whispers most people never noticed. Usually when people thought he was being lazy and dosing off he was actually just trying really hard to listen.

It was funny the kind of things people would reveal around you when they didn’t think you were paying attention. You could learn a lot about the world with your eyes closed.

But no whispers came this time. Not distorted voice tried to speak to him in the darkness. Even the wind had died down and before he knew it he was sleeping in earnest, at long last taking that well deserved nap.

There were no nightmares this time. No dreams. Just a comforting darkness.

Who knows how long he slept. He probably would have ended up staying like that right up until the cavern grew light again if it wasn’t for the alarm that went off. A little bell was ringing under the main compartment of the sentry station. Its high chime nagged at him until he cracked an eye open and smacked the off button with all the resentment one usually reserved for their alarm clock.

He yawned, jaw stretching wide and eye sockets screwing shut. When his mouth clicked shut again he rubbed at his sockets, wincing when he remembered the crack. The lights in his eyes slowly grew into being and began to focus in on his surroundings.

It was late. Time had continued normally and he didn’t have any strange half memories or new mysterious scars to worry about. It looked like there had not been any resets yet.

But the ringing that had woken him all but promised to ruin his night. There was a blinking red light on the hidden panel within his little station. He had to push away several frozen condiment bottles to see which of Alphys’s camera he had to go check on. One of them had seen something big enough to set off an alarm near the Ruins.

Usually when the alarm went off it was just some of the local teens out late having a laugh or a tree branch snapping under the weight of too much snow. He had lost track of how many times he had been woken up to go investigate something as thrilling as a broken ice sickle or a falling rock.

 But this time he wasn’t so sure that would be the case.

He didn’t waste any time with walking. He teleported right over to the door. A familiar sense of dread toyed with him when he saw that the snowdrift up against the obsidian door had crumbled away. The door was closed now but it had obviously been opened recently. That alone was enough to make him uncomfortable. The door to the Ruins never opened.

He felt a little stab of regret at having not gotten here sooner. He had a friend on the other side of that door. 

He crept a little closer to the main path, hugging up against the forest shadows and making an effort not to be too loud. There were footprints in the snow; deep, fresh and messy. Someone had just come through here and they had not been wasting any time. The kicked up snow and wide pacing made it obvious they had been going at a full run right out the gate, slipping in the snowdrift but otherwise refusing to slow down.

He cast a longing look at the closed door. He had never been on the other side before. He did not know how to safely teleport to the other side since he didn’t know the layout of the world behind it. If he did, he would have gone to see if his friend was ok. Unfortunately he had a pretty good idea of what had happened to her.

_It’s happening._

He teleported ahead several yards, following the tracks but sticking to the shadows. The world had gone eerily quiet.

He didn’t catch up to Snowdin’s newest guest until he was nearly within sight of his sentry station again. The damn thing could really move.

He heard the pant of labored breathing  and the loud crunch of footsteps just before he found his quarry; a dark silhouette running through the night. Its hair was like dirty snow, catching the dim light with every movement. Thick clouds of steam rose from their mouth and nose with every breath.

Sans squinted through the dark. Was that…a human? 

It was muttering to itself now. Sounded female and somewhat…familiar? Where had he heard that voice before?

He felt a wide range of conflicting emotions. Humans were dangerous. This one in particular sent off all the warning bells in his head. Humans were powerful and resilient and after their two races had spent so much time apart, much of their true nature had become embroidered in fantastic myth. He was a sentry. It was his job to report this and capture her for the good of all monster. But those reasons rang hollow in his mind and lacked enthusiasm as he tried to convince himself of his duty.

He had promised his friend on the other side of the door that if she could not protect the humans she found, he would look after them for her. Even if that meant protecting them from himself.

The woman on the other side of the door had said so many wonderful things about the humans she had known. She had called them kind, smart and funny. She had praised their ability to think and wait and forgive. She had laughed at their quirky resilient behavior and had ultimately, quietly- so soft she had probably thought he couldn’t hear- sobbed at their misplaced bravery.

He had made a promise to his friend to look after this creature. And who knows, maybe this human had just snuck out on his friend while she had been sleeping and he was just being too pessimistic about her fate. After all it was pretty late.

His shoulders slackened and he reached into his pocket. Now that he thought about it, the poor kid was probably scared stiff. Cold, alone and lost in a world she probably knew nothing about. She was dangerous, sure, but how well did she know that? Maybe his brother was right. Maybe she would just need someone there to show her the ropes and help her get the hang of how things worked down here.

Well, hopefully that person wouldn’t necessarily have to be him, but regardless he should probably get a good feel for her character before she got to Snowdin. At least he could rest easy knowing Papyrus was safe at home for the time being.

He pulled a little whoopee cushion out of his pocket and worked on attaching it to his hand. It was such a stupid little thing but he always kept it _handy_ for breaking the ice during tense hellos or awkward goodbyes. Maybe the little joke would be a good way to ease the human into their world- let her know they were friendly. Besides, he didn’t know how scary a human would perceive someone like himself to be. Maybe she was more scared of him than he was of her.

Sans teleported up near the bridge just as the human finally reached it. She skidded to a halt at the gap, leaning back so far that she fell over in a spray of old snow, cursing loudly as she fell. He scowled as she thrashed around wildly, like a turtle stuck on its back. She flailed her limbs, kicked up more snow as she made several attempts to get to her feet before literally kicking her legs out from under herself.

“what the hell lady?” He whispered under his breath.

“Dammit. Fuck! Shit.” She rolled around, struggling to pull something out of her sleeve. “Stop that.” She snapped, then lashed out at her own limbs and hissed, “Make me!” Her voice kept changing pitch.

He stopped trying to attach the whoopee cushion to his hand. Ok. This one may be a little loony.

Eventually she got back to her feet and tossed something out into the dark. It smacked up against one of the wooden poles of his brother’s poorly made gate and bounced right back at her. “No!” She shouted in frustration. “Ahah!” She cried in triumph a second later, diving for the object she had just tried to throw away with such enthusiasm. 

Finally Sans got a good look at the object she was tossing around. It looked like a fire poker.

A sharp pain ran up against his eye and across his chest at the sight of it, causing his hands to dart up to the old scars in reflex. A flood of dark thoughts and emotions washed over him. He really, _really_ did not like the look of that poker. He took a few clumsy steps farther back into the trees.

“Just drop it already! You know I’m just going to stab you again if you keep it!” Her voice dropped to a purr. “Go ahead. Our last save was in the house.” She turned to look back the way she had come. “Do you really want to reset everything and do _that_ all over again?”

Sans’s hands balled into fists, fingers pressing together so hard they creaked.

The human hung her head, shoulders going slack. She slid the poker back up her sleeve. She did not move.

Sans glared out at her from the darkness. It was _her_. She was the one he had been looking for all this time. She was the anomaly that had been messing with the timelines. She was the cause of all his nightmares! Who’s to say for sure what it was that his dreams had shown him- the past, the future, vague possibilities- whatever they were _she_ was the source. Whatever they were, some of them had been bad enough to give him scars.

She coughed and shuffled in place, her back turned to him. She stood there with her toes touching the threshold of the bridge. Several second passed by in silence. She began to scan the trees, looking over her shoulder and standing on her tiptoes.

Realization all but drained him. She was waiting for _him_. She knew he was watching her!  She knew he was meant to go out and meet her! He had probably already done it a hundred times before.

_“Do you find your name ironic, Sans?”_

_He tried to evade her but she had latched on to his shirt. When he teleported she came with him._

_“You try so_ hard _to hide it with jokes. You’re a Comic, Sans- like the goofy font! Oh go on, laugh. You love puns.”_

Crack! _His head collided with the trunk of a tree._

_“But Sans can also mean ‘without!’ Hah! Without Hope, without peace. Often_ Sans _a brother too!”_

Sans backed up into the forest until he was out of sight, her cruel laughter echoing inside his head.

No. Not this time.

Already the memory was becoming nothing more than a faint wisp of color and sound floating around inside his head but for a brief moment he had _known_. He had been able to remember. She had messed up. He could still cling to these scraps a little longer before he forgot the reason why.

He could still get his brother out of here before she killed everyone.

***

It was by chance that they met outside of Snowdin. He couldn’t teleport directly to their home. He had to do things in a series of shorter jumps. He had just shown up near the main bridge when he spotted the tall, lanky figure of his brother trudging through the snow.

“Oh! There you are brother! You stayed out much longer than I anticipated so I decided to warm up some dinner and bring it to you!” He called across the distance.

Sans ran up to him and snagged him by the arm, nearly causing him to drop his container of spaghetti. He did however, drop the unplugged microwave he had had tucked under his other arm. “Hey!” Papyrus yelped, watching helplessly as it tumbled out into the snow and its door popped open. “Oh dear.” He sighed. “I hope it didn’t break. Undyne wouldn’t be happy if I broke her gift.”

“Paps. Papyrus. hey. look at me.” Sans panted, nervous and out of breath. The memories were gone but still he clung to what he knew. He clung to what he had seen and heard in the forest like a drowning man clutching at straws. She had talked about resetting time. She could _reset time_.

“i need you to go back. we need to go back to town.”

“Ok.” Papyrus said with a frown. “Did you make sure someone come to take your place at the station before you left?”

“uh, no. no. something just came up and we need to leave.”

His frown deepened. “Leave? To where? It’s the middle of the night! You never want to do anything but sleep when it’s this late. I thought I was going to have to carry you home once I found you!”

Sans lowered his voice even though no one else was around to hear. “look, somethings uh, something happened during my shift. everyone is fine but we should probably try and get the townsfolk to move somewhere else for the night just to be safe, capiche?  just until undyne can take a look at it and sound the all clear.”

“Oh. Ok.” He stooped down to pick up the dropped microwave and squawked in surprise when Sans caught him by the arm and teleported, carrying his brother through the lightless vacuum and dropping them both off in their Livingroom.

“Sans! How did you-” He looked around in alarm, “The microwave!”

“eh, we can get it later. just roll with it for now, ok? just how late is it anyway?” He glanced up at the nearest clock then stuffed his hands in his pockets and let out a slow breath. He had to calm down so he didn’t freak his brother out.  “ok. grillby’s should still be open. i will go let him know what’s up and he can spread the word to everyone staying out late. you can handle the inn.”

“Um, ok. But what’s going on? You haven’t said anything yet. What should I tell everyone? What did you find?”

Sans opened his mouth but no words came out. He rolled his jaw and clacked his teeth. He hadn’t had enough time to come up with a good story yet.

Papyrus’s voice became unusually soft for the second time that day. He stepped forward hesitantly and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Is … is it a human?”

For once Sans couldn’t put his mask on fast enough. Papyrus saw the truth in his eyes before he could look away and deny it.

“So it _is_ a human.” He smiled. “But Sans, that’s wonderful news! I will finally get to meet a real human! I can capture them and Undyne will make me part of the Royal guard! And then king Asgore will finally have the soul he needed to break the barrier-”

“uhhh.” Sans cleared his throat and tried not to fidget. “i don’t think it would be wise to go and meet her, Pap. i’m pretty’s sure she’s dangerous.”

Papyrus frowned. “Didn’t we just talk about this a few hours ago?”

“i mean it Paps.”  He pleaded. “there is something wrong with her. she’s dangerous and i’m afraid she’s going to hurt people. she has a weapon.”

“all the more reason for us to go out and meet her first!”

Sans shook his head. “no. no, look, i just know how this is gonna go down if you stay, alright? i know something bad will happen if we all just stick around and hope for the best. please Paps, go to the inn and try to get everyone to leave.” A thought occurred to him and he brightened a little. “as a future royal guardsmen you gotta put the people first, right? you gotta make sure they are all safe.”

Papyrus thought for a moment before giving him a reluctant nod. “I suppose it would be rather careless of us as Snowdin sentries and for me, a future Royal Guardsmen, to not alert our friends and neighbors and give them the option to leave if they so wish. I am sure many of them would be nervous at the sight of a human and we cannot afford to have anyone scare her when she comes to visit us.”

Sans sighed in relief. “thank you, Paps.” He pulled up the hood of his coat and headed out the door. “i will go cover grillby’s.”

“Right! I will be out in one moment. I must go prepare!”

Sans stepped out to alert the bar and a few other stragglers along the way. Papyrus took an unusual amount of time getting ready and then emerged from their home empty handed, looking no different from when Sans had left him. But he kept his word and let the woman running the Inn know what was going on and even took the initiative and covered the houses down by the river.

There was a fair amount of sleepy monsters collecting in the streets around them when the two brothers crossed paths again.

“I got everyone on my side of the town.” Papyrus declared with no small hint of pride. He had been darting around quick as lightning once he had gotten into it.

“great job bro. look, i want you to make sure everyone gets to waterfall safe, ok? grillby said he would call the river person over to help move everyone. You should go with them and report to undyne. i forgot to tell the guard dogs on my way over so i need to go drop by the doghouses real quick.”

Papyrus shifted uncomfortably and looked away. “Are you sure that calling Undyne right now would be the best idea? We both know she would never hurt an innocent person -and she’s a really cool friend! But maybe… maybe she would scare the human if she was the first monster they met?”

Sans took his brother by the shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “listen to me. that _thing_ is dangerous. more dangerous than you know.” He laughed at himself.  He was the only one who knew just how pointless all this effort could be. But maybe she would pass them by if they stayed out of her way. Maybe if they all hid and kept quiet she would find whatever it was she was looking for and leave. Then again, maybe she would just reset everything and hunt them all down later.  Maybe next time he wouldn’t be lucky enough to remember. Maybe next time she wouldn’t talk to herself and give away her secret.

Sans let out a dark chuckle as the unfairness of their situation set in. “who knows. none of this may even matter. but she messed up this time. she let something slip and now i know what she is.”

“...she’s a human.” Papyrus answered with a confused scowl.

“that’s right. but she’s more than that. she more _dangerous_ than that. look, get to waterfall and when everyone is safe i will try to explain what’s going on, ok? this could all be for nothing. she may just bring us back if she can’t find us but- but i would like to try and keep you safe this time.”

Papyrus picked at the fingers of his gloves, shifting uncomfortably. “Sans, you are scaring me. I’m not sure I understand what you are trying to say. I think… maybe I should go with you.”

“you can’t . Please, not this time.” 

“But I want to help her! I want to help her be good again!”

Sans hugged him tight, eyes unfocused upon the darkness outside of town where the human would eventually emerge. “i know you do, bro. but i don’t know if all humans can be born good like us monsters. some of them may not even have anything good in them to remember. look, if everything is ok by morning you can talk to her. but right now i really need you to take everyone to waterfall.”

His brother was quiet for a long time before he sighed and pulled away. “Alright. I will bring everyone to Waterfall and make sure Undyne knows. But then I’m coming back here with her to make sure you are ok.”

It felt like the entire mountain had been lifted from Sans’s shoulder when Papyrus finally agreed. His smile was one of relief as he looked up at his brother.  “deal.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gilbert...... :3


	31. But They Refused

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But They Refused
> 
> ***
> 
> Some things never change...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to listen to this while you read. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9Qsx8HkjHE   
> and when it switches to Sans you can switch to this if you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jJ8KMawE8
> 
> Its what I listened to while writing quite a few of the Snowdin chapters. ^_^

“Go ahead. Our last save was in the house.” Chara purred. “Do you really want to reset everything and do _that_ all over again? Do you really want to risk it?”

Rain’s grip slackened. She was worn out. She didn’t have the energy to fight for another true reset just yet, which meant Chara could drag them right back to the save point she had made just before Toriel had found them if they had to reload. Did she really want to face Toriel again over something as small as this? She would be weaker if they went back.

Besides, the outcome may not have been nearly as bad as it had looked. Toriel could still be alive… Maybe. But if she went back and tried again she knew things would only get worse.

The past few days- or weeks- hell, could have been months for all she cared- had slipped by in the same timeless, unmoving manner as always. Getting this far without allowing Chara to murder everything that moved had been a draining uphill battle. One that was going on blessedly unnoticed by the rest of the residents in the Underground.

She had been doing so well up until now.

Rain gave up trying to throw Chara’s weapon into the chasm guarded by the too-wide bar's of Papyrus's gate. She relinquished her control over her arms and bowed her head. They came to an uneasy truce. Chara kept the poker clenched tightly in their hands and allowed Rain to resume control of the rest of their body- for now.

_“There. See? A compromise. I can still be reasonable.”_ Chara purred.

Rain bit back a sharp remark and waited. Sans would be along soon enough. The two of them were mentally making bets on whether or not he would have the whoopee cushion this time.

Rain kept a careful eye on Chara’s cloudy presence. After the royal screw-up that had led to the Papyrus and Undyne tag-team demolition derby they had experienced several timelines ago, Chara didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about trying to kill Sans right off the bat again. Of course low enthusiasm was not the same as having none at all.

_“The trash bag sure taking his time this run, isn’t he?”_

Rain frowned. By now they could usually hear him coming. She began to look around, scanning the trees and checking the path behind them. All seemed quiet.

She had kind of been looking forward to seeing him again. She had hoped that this time they would be able to work something out now that she had better control over herself. She had hoped that as the only other mostly-non-murderous creature with knowledge of both souls and timelines, he would know something that could help her. Maybe he would hear her out now that the Underground wasn’t empty.

She waited and she waited, but nobody came.

The darkness seemed eerily quiet tonight. The shadows seemed vast and empty. “Hello?” She finally crossed the bridge, half expecting him to tell her to stop. She could hear his voice rattling around in her head, telling her to turn around and greet her new pal. But in reality she remained alone in the silence with nothing but Chara there to keep her company.

Chara hummed in interest. _“I guess something changed. So, what now? You know I won’t let you just lay down here and die in the snow.”_

She crossed the bridge. She had nowhere to go but forward. Chara would not allow for much else. Maybe Sans was still sleeping. She wasn’t sure but she may have emerged from the Ruins on a slightly different day and time than usual. So maybe she simply didn’t know where he was yet.

They passed the sentry station and its odd out of place lamp. There were frozen bottles of condiments scattered across the station floor but the structure was otherwise empty.

There were no footprints in the snow. No shuffling footsteps following behind them and no fluttering orange scarf approaching them from a foggy distance.

Things were different.

Things had changed.

They carried on in relative silence.  Maybe they would meet Sans later on. Maybe Papyrus wouldn’t be waiting for them in Snowdin this time.

Maybe this time, finally, at long last, she would be able to spare him.

Chara laughed inside her head. _“Don’t get your hopes up.”_

The weight of recent events crawled on her back like restless rats and weighed her spirits down to the point that it felt like she was sinking a few inches deeper into the snow than usual.

She had planned to sneak into Snowdin while Toriel was away from home. All she had wanted was a nap beforehand while she waited for her to leave the house. She had just needed a few minutes of sleep. She thought she had found a place to rest that was far enough away to keep everyone safe. But she had overslept. She had dreamed too deeply and Chara had snuck back into control.

Rain had only seen glimpses of the motions as they happened. They were an eerie echo of the first time they had passed through her house.

_Toriel turned around with a start, hand going over her heart as she gave a little surprised yelp. She had been drawn to the basement by some nagging memory. “Oh! A human! Hello dear, you scared me…”_

_The iron was hot in their hands._

_Toriel tried to reason with them. “I can’t let you pass. It is too dangerous for you beyond this door. Please, allow me to explain.”_

_Rain felt her own voice go raw with anger. “No. **You are not worth talking to.** ”_

She looked out across the frozen pond where once she had braved an electricity maze in what felt like a lifetime ago.  She gave the surface a few test taps before shimmying onto the ice and inching across on wobbly legs.

She had not been careful enough in the Ruins. She had messed up.  But at least Papyrus was not here now. At least he was not in danger. At least she would not have to bare the look of disappointment on his face when she brushed past all his little puzzles.

_Things became a blur of motion and flame. Lights danced across their eyes and burned away chunks of clothing. The sound of metal ringing against the stones with every failed swipe eventually caused Rain to awaken from the lull of shadows Chara had tried to smother her in._

_Chara fought Toriel, Rain fought Chara, Toriel fought Rain._

_What a mess._

Rain closed her eyes against the memory, rubbing at her face with cold hands as she fled farther and farther from the scene in grim silence. It had all happened so fast. Chara had moved up their save point to the very start of the battle. She couldn’t escape it. The only way out would have been another true reset and she was too tired to pull one off.

_“My child, why are you doing this?” She cried, a storm of fire pushing up against the walls in an attempt to scare them away. Yet still they pushed on. Still they advanced. For Rain it was the desperation to escape into the forest that drove her. For Chara it was a need to regain some of her lost LOVE._

_“What do you have to prove?” Toriel begged, reluctant to fight them in earnest._

_“That I can still be good!” Rain cried, feeling Chara raising their hand to strike even as she fought against it and tried to turn the blow against herself._

_They fled into the forest._

_Who had won?_

**_Who had won?_ **

It had all happened too fast. She had tried to stop the blow. She had been so sure she had succeeded. Yet still there had been such fear in Toriel’s eyes. She swore she hadn’t touched her yet still the caretaker of the Ruins fell, clutching at her face and side, a pained gasp rocking her.

She had not looked back to check on her. She could not give Chara the chance to absorb her soul if she had been hurt. She had to get them out of there as quickly as possible. The monsters in the Ruins were easy prey. She had to protect them. With the way no longer blocked she had to take the opportunity as it presented itself and flee.

Now as snow began to fall and she ran with her head bowed against the growing wind, her choice gnawed at her. She hadn’t really hurt her, had she? The blow had missed. _It had missed!_

If it had missed then why had she seen magic leaking from a cut on Toriel’s face? Why had she cried out in pain? Toriel’s parting words had been but a whisper but they rang in her ears like a roar as she fled.

_“I see now. I think I remember you. Please, my Child, do as you say… Please, be good.”_

So now she continued to put distance between her and the door, dropping down new save points and hoping things would be better in Snowdin. Her only consolation now was that Chara was just as confused as she was. She did not know what her mother’s true fate was. Rain’s only victory was having been strong enough to make them run.

They breezed through the puzzles, hardly encumbered by the darkness now. They already knew every step and every answer.

Things grew more difficult when the howl of dogs began to split the air. Chara became much more energetic then, eager to spill dust.

The night stretched long.

The guard dogs came, they found them, they fought.

Chara won.

The dogs died.

Rain jumped off a cliff.

_Reset._

They ran. They tried to scale a rock wall but Chara made her slip and they fell into the awaiting guards, killing two dogs in a swift pair of twin blows.

Rain allowed themselves to be hacked to pieces by the rest of the group.

_Reset._

She evaded them, despite Chara’s occasional mocking howls that helped draw them in. She managed to split the pack up.  She laughed with relief when she managed to force Chara away long enough to send the largest of the dogs racing off after a stick.

She saved.

She slogged past more of the unmanned puzzles, flipping hidden switches or shambling up some precarious alternate route she had discovered on one of their past runs.

She saved.

Chara killed the lesser of the two white dogs, who was now escorting a group of teens out of the woods and towards Snowdin.

Rain broke the ice covering on a pond and let herself sink to the bottom.

_Reset._

She stabbed herself with her own weapon.

_Reset._

She tried to throw their weapon away, casting it down a Cliffside. Chara was sent into a rage and stole control of the situation. They lost their footing and slipped into oblivion as they fought for control.

_Reset._

She befriended the lesser dog, patting its head and calming it. Chara was out of breath. They parted ways but some of the teenagers the dog had been escorting grew curious and brave and tried to follow them, throwing taunts and snowballs their way.

Some of them got hurt.

Some of them did not get up.

Chara laughed.

Rain ran.

The process was repeated with the dogs in matching cloaks. The memories of their names had long since been lost to time. All Rain remembered is that she always ended up wearing a cloak taken from one of their bodies.

Chara was particularly vicious about this one, killing the pair several times. Rain turned her own weapon against herself more than once.

_Reset._

She threw herself onto the spikes of an active puzzle.

_Reset._

She lost the fight on purpose.

_Reset._

The dogs became separated. Chara struck one of them down, her yelp loud in the night. She snarled at them even as she bled magic and dust. Chara took her cloak and giggled in triumph as Rain pulled them away, eventually forced to take this half victory over no victory at all.

Fine. Let the demon have her fucking cloak.

She could hear the other dog’s mournful howl behind them. He would not follow. He would remain behind and try to save his injured mate. She had still been alive when they had left. Maybe there was still hope.

Reluctantly, Rain saved.

At long last they came to the bridge that led into town. The wind howled across it, spitting flecks of snow and ice into their face. Rain pulled the cloak down over her eyes. How long had this night lasted in order to bring them here? Days? Weeks?

She tried a few more times to throw away her weapon before she went into town, tossing it over the ledge. Yet Chara used her own methods against her and jumped off the bridge in a storm of bitter curses when she tried.

_Reset._

Finally they reached the conclusion that they should just cross the bridge as-is. The lights in town were mostly dark. The town was probably abandoned. Usually if they stirred up too much trouble Snowdin would be evacuated by the time they got there.

It looked like even Sans and Papyrus would be missing this time. With the way Sans always managed to show up out of nowhere and the frenzied alertness of the guard dogs, Rain had been so sure she would eventually run into him before she reached town. Yet neither of the two skeletons had ever appeared.

Maybe it was for the best.

They both took a deep breath and crossed the bridge into Snowdin where the buildings shielded them from the worst of the wind as it died down to an accusing whisper. The crunch of their feet against the ice was like the crack of splintering wood. The snap of their stolen cloak in the wind felt as loud as a mocking applause in the dreary night. It all came together like a scornful symphony saying: “congratulations! You have been slightly less murderous than the last time you were here!”

They took the money and some of the food from the abandoned corner store. Rain tried not to look at the note left pinned to the cash register as Chara rummaged around for her favorite items.

_“Please don’t hurt my family.”_

Rain risked a little relived smile as they continued to find all the buildings to be empty. Taunting wind and crippling guilt aside, she was doing much better this time around. She was really making a difference. She was starting to feel a shift of power taking place and Chara hated that. But for the time being they were locked in a stalemate, both too exhausted to do much more than simply keep up with one another. Their long trek had left them sore and frozen. They could both sense one another pooling the last of their energy and Determination for what may or may not lay ahead.

They left the town behind and ventured out into the fog.

Between the crunch of their own footsteps and the roar of the rushing river to their side, they did not hear it until they were nearly upon him. A few yards away a tall figure stood stock still in the night, unmoving from a choke point in the road.

Rain gasped and Chara giggled.

_“No. No, no, no, no! Why is he still here? Everyone else is gone! Even his brother didn’t show up! Why is he here!”_

_“Oh, good. I was afraid we would miss him.”_

Rain tried to turn away. There must be another way around. There must be a different path she could take.

But there was a cliff face to their right and icy cold water to their left. There was nothing left behind them and Chara would only allow her to continue moving forward.

Rain felt her limbs begin to move against their will. One shambling step after another Chara began to move them forward, teeth clenched and wisps of panting breath rising up between their teeth. This was how she would regain control. This was where Rain’s rebellion would die, crippled and mewling in the snow as it always did. She would remind Rain once again just how pointless it was to try to care for anyone in this world.

Papyrus turned towards them, the pinpricks of light in his eyes focusing in on them like little glinting fog crystals. He held out a hand. “Halt, Human!” He called. His voice was loud and strong against the feeble moaning of the wind that tried in vain to dispel the fog.

“Papyrus, why are you still here?” Rain choked, Chara swinging their feet forward another step.

“Hey, quit moving while I’m talking to you.” He commanded, hand going to his hip like an impatient mother. “I, the Great Papyrus, have something I wish to say to you.”

“Papyrus!” She moaned, dragging Chara back a few steps. Chara was a rolling storm cloud now, pulling against Rain’s restraints like an angry dog with its eyes set upon a cornered cat.

_“I’m going to rip him apart.”_

“Human, I understand how scared you must be, falling down into the Underground where everything is so much cooler and stranger than whatever world you came from. In fact I understand if you are intimidated by all this! It is not every day you get to meet a monster as great as I.” He placed a proud hand upon his chest for emphasis.

“Why are _you still_ _here_? Everyone left!”

His confidant smile faltered a little. His hand twitched up to his scarf. When he spoke again he sounded a little more sheepish than usual and had to clear his throat. “Yes, yes I know. I made sure they all made it out okay. I didn’t  want any of them to frighten you.”

Chara’s laughter bubbled up from inside their mind and clawed its way up their throat. They flung their head back and cackled, grin so wide it showed all their teeth. “Oh but _you_ stayed  behind didn’t you? Why? So you could capture me? So you could become famous? So you could finally join the Royal Guard?” She was stalking towards him again.

“N-no. That’s not it.” He said softly, tugging at his scarf again. “Human, my brother warned me about you. About what you have been doing. He says you are dangerous and not to be trusted. He says that you will hurt people if given the chance.” For a brief moment he looked rather sad, eyes focused on her messy hair. “And… now that I see the way you shamble about from place to place- that look in your eye… the way your hair always seems to carry dusty powder within it…” Always? How long had he been watching them? Was he speaking of recent events or impossible memories? “I-I don’t want to believe all the things my brother has said about you! You just got here, so he hardly knows you! But it feels… it feels like your life is going down a dangerous path.”

“You can’t save me.” Chara sneered, glaring up through her bangs.

“You can’t save us!”  Rain echoed.

They had heard this all before. She had done this all before! This was going to end just like last time! Why? Why did it have to be him? Why did he still try to help her? Did he not realize that she had already killed him? Did he not remember that she had cut him down the last time he had tried this?

Rain tried to drag them into the churning river but Chara fought back, taking several more staggering steps towards Papyrus. _“Don’t worry Rain. Even after he is gone he will still believe in you. Isn’t that a nice little sentiment for someone so forgettable? How funny.”_

Papyrus clacked his mouth shut and flinched, taking a little step back when Chara lurched forward, fire iron sliding out of her sleeve. Did he see it?

“H-hey! Quit moving. See, this is exactly what I am talking about. This is why you scare everyone! Human, I think you are in need of guidance. Someone needs to keep you on the straight and narrow.”

“Someone like you?” Chara taunted.

“Yes! Exactly like me! Nyeh heh heh.” He agreed, brightening a little and laughing to himself to try and dispel the tension. “I-I will not fight you human. I, Papyrus, see great potential within you. Even if you can’t see it yet yourself. I know you can be a good person R-Human. All you have to do is try. I am willing to give you the chance you so desperately need!”

Rain was being forced further and further back inside her own mind. This was it. This was what Chara had been waiting for. This was what she had been pooling all of her energy to prepare to do. Their heart was racing, a war drum in their ears. They fought to the beat of that drum, the internal turmoil becoming so violent that a faint outline of their writhing soul began to drag itself out into the open, a dull half visible glow in the night. Their palms began to sweat. They had gotten used to feeling cold but now it was like they were on fire. They ground their teeth together, hissing curses and objections under their breath.

Why wouldn’t he just give up on her like she had asked him to? Like everyone else did?

_“Forgettable”_

_“Then why didn’t_ he _forget?”_ Rain wailed.

Chara began to pick up the pace, her thoughts echoing into a focused chant. _“Kill it. Kill it. Kill it.”_

Papyrus took a deep breath. “I see you are approaching. Are you coming to offer a hug of acceptance?”

She just wanted to get out of here. She just wanted to spare as many monsters as she could then drag Chara up to the surface and then crawl into a hole far away from here so they could never hurt anyone ever again. She wanted to run away from all of this so she could finally give up and rest.

_“Looks like his big brother is soon to be **Sans** a family member once again!”_ Chara teased.

She was past the point of redemption. She had given up on herself a long time ago. She was so, so tired. She wasn’t quite sure what she was doing anymore or why she was doing it, all she knew was it wasn’t right to let Chara hurt people. It was her fault for giving her soul away. Her fault for letting her anger further twist the both of them. Her fault for looking away because she didn’t want to make the hard choices. She accepted this. Why couldn’t he?

“Why won’t you let me go?” She sobbed, struggling to turn the fire poker upon herself as Chara began to run, eyes trained upon the same spot on Papyrus’s neck that she always struck at.

_“Kill it! Kill it! Kill it! Fill the hole with LOVE! Let us be numb! **Kill it!** ”_

The distance between them was closing fast now.

Twenty feet.

 fifteen.

Ten.

“Because I believe in you.” He replied simply, arms outstretched in an offered embrace; welcoming her. Forgiving her for all the things he did and did not know about. 

**_“Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!”_ **

Rain squeezed her eyes shut. She felt her body jump forward the last few feet, fire iron raised high overhead as Papyrus echoed the words of his past life and told her: “I, Papyrus, welcome you with open arms.”

***

Sans was a crappy sentry. He could have stopped her from progressing. Hell, he may have been one of the few monsters in the Underground that could give something like _that_ any real trouble once they set their heart to violence.

But what would have been the point of it? If she knew he had grown wise to what she was this early on in the game wouldn’t it just force another reset? He would forget all that he had learned and be reduced to guessing at vague snapshots again.

He rubbed at the crack against his eye. Besides, he had a feeling that he had tried to tangle with her in the snow before and it had only made her mad. So the only thing he could hope to do now was play it smart. He had promised his friend behind the door that he would watcher her so, well, he would watch her.

It was a hard thing to stomach. Sometimes he could hear her muttering to herself across the wind. She blew through the puzzles with more practice than even he and Papyrus had. She walked around hidden traps without ever looking up and solved things either by finding the hidden switches or completing the task in one practiced, detached motion. She didn’t ever pause at a crossroads.

Yeah. He was getting some real strong “been there done that” vibes from this thing.

The dogs caught wind of her without ever needing him to say anything. He listened to them baying throughout most of the night. He doubted they would ever be able to pin her down with the way she handled the terrain though.

He started to stray from her position, mind drifting toward the door to the Ruins. Maybe he should go check on his friend. 

He had not managed to stay far before he started to feel it. The world was twisting. Trembling and guttering like a flame struggling against the wind.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

The Baying of the guard dogs grew quieter, more spread out. A few minutes later the strange sensation happened again.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

It was like a broken record getting stuck on, then skipping over a particular word. The sounds of the hunting dogs were replaced by the cries of children; their voices shrill and scared in the cold night.

He threw away any hope of visiting the door and turned his weary feet towards the direction of the cries. It did not take him long to hone in on the sound and locate several teenage monsters lying in the snow, their friends trying to wake them up. It was a grim sight, softly glowing white magic dripping into the snow and turning to dust while their friends knelt beside their still bodies and cried.

Sans had never been any good at healing magic. The best he could do was teleport the injured ones over to Grillby’s. He knew the fire monster would be hanging behind to offer a safe haven down in his cellar.

By the time he managed to pin down the human again she was getting uncomfortably close to Snowdin. The cries of Dogamy and Dogaressa lead him back to her path but once again he could not follow her for long once he realized the state the Royal Dogs were in. 

He took the two mates to Grillby’s, some numb sort of wondering if Dogaressa would receive help in time or if she would bleed out, playing out in his mind.

Sans stayed down in the cellar with Grillby after that; straining to hear the possible arrival of the human up above. She was probably in town by now.

“so everyone else is gone?” He asked, holding down Dogaressa while her mate whispered encouragements and pleas in her ear.

Grillby was rolling up his already rumpled sleeves, the heat in his hands growing more prominent. He had some basic healing abilities but they were not exactly pleasant.

“………I believe Papyrus left with the last boat. I have not seen him since…” Grillby crackled, his voice a soft whisper where half his words were to be determined by the arc and snap of his dancing flames.

Sans let out a slow breath he had not known he had been holding. At least that would be different then. Maybe she would get what she wanted this time and let them be. At the very least he would have a few days to relax before she reset everything again.

Dogaressa yelped when Grillby placed a hand on her open wound. Dogamy whimpered and both he and Sans struggled to keep his mate steady long enough for Grillby to cauterize the strike. The smell of spent magic and singed hair hung thick overhead.

“Be strong my love! Do not worry, I am here. I am here beside you.” Dogamy whimpered, tail trembling as he pressed his muzzle to hers.

“…..It is done. Let her rest….”

“Will she be ok?” He barked.

“…We can hope…”

_Flicker._

“…..It is done. Let her rest….”

“Will she be ok?” He barked.

“…We can hope…”

Sans scowled. For a moment he could have sworn he had heard an echo. Another reset perhaps? Who was she terrorizing now?

He gave Dogamy a pat on the back before taking his leave. Grillby watched him go with a questioning spark but did not try to stop him. He had long since grown used to the way Sans would drift in and out of his company on a whim.

Sans slipped back out into the night, checking the ground for footprints. The roads had been turned to ice and slush thanks to the myriad of unusual foot traffic it had received tonight but once he got to the edge of town where the cheery Snowdin banner greeted him with its festive lights, he soon found a single set of unfamiliar tracks leading into town.

So, she was already here. No surprise there.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and surveyed the area. The corner store’s door was ajar and Grillby’s place had a crack in one of the windows. He had probably missed her passing by ten minutes or so.

He rubbed his fingers against the paper in his pocket in idle thought. Good. Good riddance. Let her go. Let her go do her thing somewhere else.

He frowned when his fingers brushed the letter again. There were two folded pieced of paper in his pocket instead of one.

He withdrew his hand and looked at the contents. There was his own letter, folded with uneven edges and messy handwriting, and then there was another. Its corners were well matched and its scrawl was large and careful.

He put away his own letter and unfolded this new one.

It was from Papyrus. He must have slipped it inside his pocket when they had last seen each other.

“no.” He whispered, eyes darting across the page.

_Flicker._

_Sans, I know that everyone is afraid of the human. I know there is more going on than you wish to tell me. It is strange. It’s like I can feel it in the air. To tell the truth, I am afraid of all this too._

_It’s a terrible thing, being afraid. Sometimes it makes you do things you regret. Or it makes you regret not doing anything at all._

_Well, the Great Papyrus shall not be one to be conquered by fear!_

_I know you told me not to go near the human. I know you want me to leave with the rest of our neighbors. But I think something is missing inside of them and they just need help finding it. Maybe something in their heart has been broken and they need help putting all the little pieces back together? Brother, if that is the case, you know I could never let someone do such a thing alone! After all, isn’t a broken heart just another type of puzzle that needs to be fit back together again?_

 

_Flicker._

“No. No, no, no! Papyrus, you promised!”

_Flicker._

 

_Everyone has been acting really strange lately. Undyne was pushing hard to get me to see things like she does last practice. She told me that sometimes the only way to vanquish an enemy is to strike them down. And now it seems you want me to see the world that way too. But, brother, I hope you can forgive me when I say I just don’t believe as you do! I believe everyone has the power to be good if they just try! And, well, if I were to show the human kindness, if I made them my friend- would that not be vanquishing an enemy all the same?_

_I hope to see you again soon. Please stay safe._

_Best regards,_

_Your brother: The Great Papyrus._

 

_Flicker._

He dropped the note and ran, every third step teleporting him several yards ahead. His soul ached with the realization that all this time these flickers could only mean one thing. She could only be attacking one person right now. Tormenting him, mocking him, hurting him.

_It had been an accident. She had cried. He had heard her crying as she ran. He had been rooted in place by grief and could not stop her._

_It had been an accident._

_She did not know._

“Not this time. Please, not again. He’s all i have. Can’t you spare him just this once?”

_“i thought we were friends rain. i gave you my coat”_

_“So? I repaid the favor. I gave you a scarf didn’t i?”_

**_It had not been an accident._ **

He knew where to go. He could feel familiarity pulling him towards the outskirts of town now. The gauntlet that lead to Waterfall. That’s where he would be. That’s where he always ended up. That was where he always found him.

_Flicker._

_The bright color of his scarf led him to him. It danced around in the wind in a mockery of true life. Why did it move so much in a world that felt so still? Why did it mock him with its animated movements while its owner lay at its feet as nothing more than dust?_

_Why could he only manage to feel numb?_

It was too late.

It was too late.

The flickering meant it was too late.

He caught sight of the scarf, dancing softly in the wind.  He was kneeling in the snow, head bowed.

“Papyrus!” He called, reaching out to him. His feet suddenly felt slow and clumsy and his voice sounded dull and raw.

He braced himself for the moment that would follow. He braced himself for the eerily familiar sight of his brother’s head rolling from his shoulders and his body turning to dust.

He heard sobbing.

He stopped at the tree line, confused. The human was still there. She was still with him. He could not quite comprehend what he was seeing. 

Papyrus looked up at him and smiled. “Sans! Sans its ok!” He called, a big relived smile stretching across his face. “Look! I did it! I got her to listen! She wants to be good again! Didn’t I tell you Sans? I knew she could be good if we just gave her a chance to try!” He held the human a little closer and rested his chin against the crown of her head, rubbing her back with a gloved hand. “Shh. There, there human. It’s ok. Everything is going to be ok now. I am so, _so_ proud of you.” 

Sans became more aware of her muffled sobs as she buried her face against his brother’s scarf, clinging to him until her knuckles where white.  “I’m Sorry. I’m so sorry. Why wouldn’t you let me go? I wanted to be good. I tried so hard. Just let me go…  Just let me go… I’m so sorry, Papyrus.” Her shoulders shook as she babbled. “Why did you let me do it? _Why_?”

Reluctantly Sans approached them. His nonexistent stomach was all tied up in a new array of knots. Was this a joke? Was it a dream? He was waiting to feel relief. Or joy, or excitement- anything! But he just felt detached and confused. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. He didn’t know what to do.

Finally, he got his dry mouth to work. “Papyrus, you promised. You told me you would leave with the others. i thought- i was afraid i had lost you.” He confessed. The ache in his voice matched the one in his chest.

He stared at the human, afraid to move. Afraid that anything he did from here on out would break the spell. Would she take this away from him if he tried to hold onto it? Why had she changed things now after all this time? Was this just a new kind of game she was playing? If he called her out would she hurt him? If he let her go would she just come back later to finish the job?

“I know Sans. I am sorry for making you worry.” Papyrus looked down at the crying creature in his arms. She did not look so menacing now. She looked tired and frail.

Sans looked out across the snow. Dogaressa’s black cloak lay trampled in the path behind her, muddy and wet. And behind his brother, hidden in the slush and probably unbeknownst to him, a long black fire poker with a sharpened edge lay hidden at his feet. Discarded at last.

 


	32. Now what?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now what?
> 
> Its time for Sans and Rain to sit down and take a well earned break.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeey We hit the 500 views mark! cool! thanks for stopping by everyone. ^_^

Her hands seemed to be permanently balled up into fists. Her knuckles were white and her fingernails were digging into the palm of her hand. She kept her head bowed. She stared at her reflection in the polished surface of the table but couldn't take in anything she was seeing.

Papyrus had flooded her with a waterfall of offers and questions, taking note of her poor state and insisting that she stay the night with him and his brother so she could get some rest.

Sans had been a little less enthusiastic about things. He had masked it by telling his brother to go on ahead to make the house presentable for their new guest while he took her aside to grab a bite to eat.

Papyrus had huffed about feeding “the Human” grease but when she didn’t join in his objections he declared that he would go make a backup meal for them at home.

Still in a state of shock, Rain had let Sans guide her towards the empty bar and grill. He offered her a seat at the bar but when she continued to hang back near the door he pointed out a booth off in the corner near the exit instead.

The snug feeling of the booth felt nice and its proximity to the exit was enough to convince her to finally sit down. Once he was certain she wasn’t going to bolt on him, Sans vanished with the promise of being right back.

She rubbed her cold face and ran her fingers through her hair. What was this? What the hell was this? What had she done? How had she done it? What did she do now? 

She should be happy that she had finally gained a hard earned victory but she just felt like someone had kicked her chair out from under her while she was sleeping.

Not to mention she had to deal with the fact that Chara was absolutely pissed. And…scared?

_“You think you can ignore me? You think that by pretending not to hear me I will just go away like a bad thought? Do you think I’m just some negative emotion for you to learn to **control**? You idiot! I am not someone you get to just walk past and ignore! I am your shadow. I go were you go. And one day when your eyes are closed, I will take back what is mine and push you back into this darkness. I will destroy you by destroying everything you thought you saved from me!”_

“You are wrong.”

_“You know that I’m not.”_

“I won’t let you hurt them this time.” She vowed, glancing through the frost-kissed windows. She couldn’t stay long. She would have to keep moving. She didn’t want to risk Chara catching her second wind when Papyrus was still nearby. There was no way in hell she was going to let Chara take this one from her. She had already saved over the encounter so that the only way they could go back far enough to change the outcome of the encounter would be if they did a true reset and neither of them were particularly enthusiastic about that idea.

Of course there was nothing stopping Chara from trying to kill him again later in this timeline. There were no rules saying that if you spared someone once you could never fight them again in the linear future.

Rain started to get up out of her chair. Screw this. It was time to go. Chara was weakened right now. Rain had full control. So why was she wasting precious time sitting in a bar?

There was a brief second of static as she prepared to leave and then Sans was standing over her. “leaving already?”

She froze in place, staring at him out of the corner of her eye. She opened her mouth to make an excuse but nothing more than a dry sort of rambling sound managed to crawl out of her throat.

He shrugged and slid into the booth across from her. “hey, that’s ok. i get it. grease isn’t everyone’s thing. still, you look like you could use something that will stick to your _ribs_ after the night you’ve had. i know i could.” He put his elbows up on the table and gave her a friendly wink from his right eye.

She blinked at him. Was that supposed to be a pun?

 _“Yes I think it was.”_ Chara grumbled. She was pacing like a cat just behind Rain’s eyelids; annoyed that he was here but aware that there was little she could do at moment to get rid of him.

Rain eased back down into her seat only to smash her knees again the table in flinching surprise when the fire exit swung open and Grillby stepped inside.

“He’s still here?”  She wondered aloud, astonished. Her shock only grew when Greater and Lesser Dog came in through the main door with Doggo in tow. They were followed by two or three other locals who poked cautious heads inside to gawk at her before inching over to their preferred seats. Her mouth hung open at the sight of them. She had thought everyone had left town.

An uneasy murmur began to slink around the room until the other monsters were silenced by a warning look from Sans.

She looked away, gripping the edge of the table. They were giving her a wide berth. To say she was welcome would be an exaggeration. Some mix of curiosity and defiance must have drawn them back out. Perhaps Papyrus had told tall tales about her kindness behind her back. Maybe Sans had told everyone it was safe to come out if they wanted to.

Ever so slowly the room began to fill with the warm murmur of conversation. For her it was even worse than the uneasy silence form a few moments earlier. She hunched her shoulders and sank deeper into her seat, hiding her face under a veil of ugly hair.

Sans watched her closely. Her reaction to the other patrons was rather damning. She looked like she had just seen a room full of ghosts. “whats a’matter pal? not one for chatter?”

Raid avoided eye contact and started to trace lines across the table with an idle finger. “You could say that.” She had been in this bar many times before but it had always been empty. Dark and deathly quiet with still-warm meals left waiting on the tables for patrons that would never return. She had never been inside while this place was occupied. Over time she had come to assume the natural state of the building was that quiet darkness that always consumed the small town in her wake.

She didn’t want to look up from her table. The guard dogs were starting a card game off in the other corner. They made sure none of their backs were turned to her. She had never seen that before. She didn’t know dogs liked card games. They had always been dead by the time she got here. She had only ever seen their empty seats.

The room was starting to gain some pleasant warmth to it now. Grillby cast an inviting light across the tables, making everything feel homely. She had never seen things in this light before. She had gotten so used to a life filled with screams, dust, then silence. She had come to see the empty streets and the loneliness of only having the voice inside her head for conversation, as normal.

But this was different. This was _life_.

She did not belong in its presence.

“don’t worry. they aren’t going to bother you. they are more interested in their drinks now. grillby is keeping things open tonight in celebration.” Sans assured, perhaps misplacing her reaction a little.

“In celebration of what?”

He shrugged. “of everything being ok.”

She ducked her head again. “but everything’s not ok.”

Sans clacked his teeth together and ran a hand over his skull. “you talkin about the kids you left out in the forest and dogaressa?”

“You know about them?” She balked. “Then why the hell are you still talking to me?”

Sans glanced at her then turned his attention to Grillby, who had detached himself from the bar and stepped forward in silence, startling Rain yet again.

“hey grillb, i’ll just take some fries and my usual.” He turned to her. “what about you? burger? fries? a drink?”

She laughed- a nervous, nearly unhinged sort of sound. “I think its best if I stay away from the alcohol.”

“then what strikes your fancy?”

Her mouth made a lot of strange movements and she looked between Sans and Grillby as if one of them would give her the answer she needed. She felt too nervous to really enjoy eating anything or even keep it down. Finally she managed to talk for the sake of getting them to stop looking at her. “I don’t know. Something light? Like, toast? A bagel? Have anything like that?”

Grillby nodded and made his way back to the fire exit.

Chara growled in displeasure at her choice. _“Bagel.”_

Rain swatted her away, eyes intent on Sans. Her whole body remained tense. This felt just like all those times she had taken his false mercy. She was waiting for him to snap. She knew he had it in him.

He drummed his fingers against the table, head propped up with his free hand. He closed his right eye and narrowed the left down to a lazy slit and picked up the conversation where it had left off. “the monsters you hurt will be fine. just saw them a minute ago. no one died. may want to avoid dogamy for a while though, he’s pissed. but hey, i figure it’s all water under the bridge as far as i’m concerned.”

“Right.” Ran agreed with no real trust or enthusiasm. “Um, Sans?”

“yeah?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“cause you looked like you needed a break.”

Her shoulders sagged. Her voice was a dry whisper. “Yeah.”

He opened his eyes and perked up a little. “and, well, i just wanted to _snow_ my appreciation, ya know? i really respect what you did back there.” There seemed to be a genuine tone of relief in his voice. But there was something else hidden in there too. One wouldn’t think that the lights suspended in the sockets of a skull could be very expressive but she had spent enough time around him now to see that he was worried. Worried that she may change her mind and take this all away from him.

He was waiting for the other shoe to drop too.

Grillby returned with their food, a welcome relief from the awkward silence that continued to grow as Rain fumbled with the thought of conversation.They both seemed to be biting back on things they wanted to say.The world around them continued to murmur and indulge in friendly chatter while between the two of them each word felt strained.

Rain gratefully took the toasted bagel she was given and clung to its existence like a life preserver. It was something to look at other than Sans. 

Chara made another brooding sound when she saw the strawberry jam and cream cheese on her food. _“I hate bagels.”_

_“Well then go to sleep so you won’t taste it.”_

_“Just get some fries or something like we always do! You know that can’t be real cream cheese, right?”_

_“Leave me alone. I’m tired. Just let me eat in peace. I earned this.”_

Rain tried to take a bite but Chara caused her to nearly drop it instead. _“Bagels are just doughnuts that dropped out of college.”_

Rain slammed her fist down on the counter. Sans twitched. “Dammit, it’s my body and it’s my bagel so shut up!”

Sans frozen in place, the white glow of his eyes glancing back and forth at nothing in particular. “uh, ok. but i wasn’t saying anything.”

Rain tried to stutter out an apology but nothing more than half-words came out. It had been such a long time since she had had a proper conversation with anyone other than Chara. Her social skills had decayed. “I’m sorry. I should go. I should… go.”

“nah. settle down. stay a while. i have been meaning to talk to you but, well-" he picked at his fries and popped the cap off of the ketchup bottle Grillby had left them. “i don’t really think the situation ever presented itself properly.”

Chara was narrowing her eyes in suspicion, the bagel rebellion forgotten. _“Wait, does he know?”_

_“I’m sure he has a hunch. Otherwise he would have met us by the bridge.”_

Chara dismissed her own question. _“Hmm, no. He’s smart but I doubt he is remembering. He was probably just sleeping when we came in this time.”_

 _"Maybe."_ Rain consented,casting Sans an apprising look, trying to guess what was going on inside his head. But despite her best attempt to interpret the situation she found herself at a loss.

***

Outside of their mental chatter, Sans was pressing on with his own conversation, trying not to let her mind settle in one place for too long. His soul thrummed in unease as he tried to press on like nothing was wrong. “not really sure how to ask this. kind of worried what the reaction will be but i guess if i mess this up it won’t matter anyway.” He looked up to see how she was taking all this. He tried to get some hint as to whether or not admitting he knew what was going on would send her into another fit of panic, rage or whatever it was that caused her to become so violent but he couldn’t be sure. 

He noticed her eyes kept darting up to the crack in his skull. He sighed and tapped the mark. “you uh, you know how i got this, don’t you? we’ve met before, haven’t we?”

She jumped half way out of her seat, slamming her knee against the table and nearly knocking over her plate. Several monsters sent her nervous looks. “What? No! The cracks? I don’t know.” She flailed a little, trying to find something non-condemning to do with her hands. “I mean, I bet it’s a cool story. That I don’t know. A story that I don’t know- are you going to tell it?” She stammered.

“hey. hey, calm down.” He waved his hands in a gesture that invited her to sit back down. Again. She couldn’t seem to keep herself still for very long.

He tried to act casual about her reaction but he could feel himself pressing his back against his seat a little too hard while his mind ran through his escape plan just in case things turned sour. “c’mon, i just want to talk, alright? sit down. enjoy your bagel. or, don’t. your body your bagel right?”

She was stuck between the motions of getting up and sitting down for an awkward amount of time. She didn’t blink as she finally lowered herself back down into her seat. “You remember me?” She asked slowly.

He tried to laugh to lighten the mood but it didn’t come out as sounding very mirthful. “yeah. i think so. little bits and pieces.”

She lowered her voice for the sake of the other guests. “So why am I not dead yet?" She hissed.

He shrugged, frustrated by how helpless he felt. “what would be the point? if i killed you here you would just reset, right? again and again until you beat me. or even worse, you would rip us all from this timeline and drag us back to the beginning.” He stared out at nothing over her shoulder, his fingers tracing idle patterns against his plate. “like i said: i really respect what you did back there with my brother. i’m not eager to ruin it.”

The human’s whole body sagged.  Whether with relief or guilt he could not tell. “Oh.”

He was picking at his fries again; bringing them half way to his mouth then just letting them drop back onto the tray whenever he became distracted by his thoughts. “look, i know you have been resetting the timeline. all i want to know is why. why do you keep doing this? and why did you deviate tonight?”

The human began to nibble at her bagel to buy herself time. She still wasn’t looking him in the eye. He waited patiently for her to finish chewing but that just lead to her taking an even bigger bite and chewing a little slower than last time.

“come on lady, work with me here. do you plan on resetting again soon? are you just doing this for laughs? did we do something wrong? did _i_ do something wrong?” He looked down at the table and grimaced. The tips of his fingers had strayed from his fries and had begun to make little scratches in the table. “i know i have probably asked you this a hundred times already and i bet you’re sick of answering me but even i deserve at least this much, right? i just want to know how long i have with my brother before things, well, you know.”

Her voice was so quiet he was surprised he could hear it at all when she answered him. It was worn and cracked like old paper tossed away by a gust of wind. “I don’t want to reset anymore, Sans. I _hate_ resetting.”

He blinked in surprise. He had… he had not been expecting that. “then why?”

Her lip twitched.  “You’re not in the mood for shish-kabob, are you Sans? You didn’t sneak any _spare ribs_ into the bar, did you?”

He gave her a confused look. “what?”

She set down her bagel. “The last time I tried to tell you what was happening, you didn’t believe me.” she held up a hand, long fingers spread wide. “You ran me through with _five_ different sets of bone.” She began to point out different points of entry across her torso and chest. “Here, here, here, here-” she pulled down the singed hem of her collar to reveal the pale twisted skin underneath where a dark scar two inches across and three inches wide marked the area just under her right shoulder. “And here.”

For the first time since he had found her clinging to his brother out in the snow, she looked him in the eye and held his gaze without fear. It was easy to see that she was still upset with him for that death but the anger seemed…distant.

He sucked in a slow breath through his teeth and leaned back. He knew he had fought her. He had nightmares about it. Visions of past lives, premonitions of his future- however you wanted to slice it the bottom line was he knew there had been a great deal of violence between the two of them. Still, it was a little unnerving to see such evidence and know that that was something _he_ had done. Something he had _chosen_ to do.

“Then you laughed. You laughed at me while I slid farther and farther down the spikes and felt them tear through my back. You _laughed_ as I threw away my weapons and let you skewer me. You didn’t just not believe me when I tried to tell you why this was happening, you violently refused to listen.”

Her eyes were cold and distant, replaying a memory she recalled with perfect clarity. For the first time in a long while Sans found himself feeling grateful that he could only recall glimpses of what had happened to him. Who knew how many deaths she had to remember in perfect detail? He knew he had put up a spectacular fight in another lifetime. Despite his reputation for being lazy he did not go down easy.

He looked her up and down again, taking in her full appearance. She was definitely the same person he had met before in his past lives. The familiarity was all there. But there was something off about her now.

It wasn’t just the eyes that felt different. He recalled smooth skin and bloodshot eyes. A curvy body and brief flashes of red hair. The creature that sat before him now was no longer like that. To put it simply, she had decayed. She had lost weight in a way that was probably unhealthy for humans. Her hair was a dull tangled mess the color of dust. Her eyes were softer but her skin was pocked with countless scars; like someone had burned, stabbed and cut the camouflage patterns of several different types of animals into her skin. Her fingers were long but a little crooked, like they had been broken and poorly set. Permanent bruised shadows now lived under her eyes.

“how many of these scars did you have before you fell into the underground?”

She smiled. A little twitch of her lip that only emphasized the permanent smirk a cut on the left corner of her lip had given her. “Aside from a few cigarette burns? None. I got them all here.”

He shook his head. “that can’t be right. resetting rolls things back, right? that’s how you have been evading death. you should be spotless.”

“So should you. But it seems our past lives are coming back to haunt us.” She rolled up her sleeves a little more to reveal more scars, then quickly hid them again. “It’s not that bad though. Only the worst of the worst bleed through. Most of this,” she gestured to the whole of her being, “was my own doing. I got them on my way here from the Ruins. Failed attempts at a reset or just the remnants of a close encounter with a monster. Usually I can heal them up without any complications but lately I have not had the same level of… _cooperation_ that I had in the past when it comes to healing.”

Sans stared at her in disbelief. This just kept getting stranger and stranger. She was claiming she got most of these just by walking from the forest door to Snowdin? A lot of those scars looked pretty old.There had also been several key words in her explanation that did not make sense. “ok.” He said slowly, the bone ridge of his brow arced in skepticism. “so i guess my first question is: why? and my second question is: how long did it really  take you to get here? ”

“It’s, um, it took a while. I don’t know how long but it’s been more than a week?” She gave him another apprising look, her previous cold confidence beginning to melt. “And I don’t mind telling you ‘why,’ but first you have to promise me you’re not going to stab me again if I tell you.”

He shrugged. “nah. i’m really not feeling up to doing anything violent right now.”

She didn’t seem to take his word for it but she appeared to be giving him the benefit of the doubt. She chewed on her lip and took in a slow breath before all the words started to run out of her like she had sprung a leak. “I sold my soul to a demon!”

“uhhh, what?”

“Her name is Chara. I thought I was going to die and she promised to save me if I let her come with me. She asked for my soul and I just kind of…gave it to her.” She laughed bitterly at herself. “Wasn’t really thinking clearly at the time. Didn’t really think the deal was going to be so literal, you know? I mean come on, it sounded like something out of a cheesy teen novel.”

“chara?” Sans echoed. The name seemed familiar. And not in a met-in-an-executed-timeline sort of way. “as in the king’s dead kid? the human kid?”

“Yes.” She agreed slowly, a suspicious glint in her eye. “She is more or less sharing my body right now and holding my soul hostage.”  Then under her breath in a voice not quite hers she added: “And judging people's poor food choices.”

Sans’s words became clipped and impatient as her story sank in. “hate to break it to ya lady but humans can’t take other human-”

She jabbed an accusing finger at him. “Don’t you _dare_ stab me again!”

He held up his hands in submission. Ah. Ok.  So this was what he had attacked her for. He must have caught her lie during a critical moment near the end of a timeline. “i’m not.” He assured, thought he continued to give her an unamused look.

She began to whisper to herself again like she had back by the bridge out in the forest. “You look and sound ridiculous. I hope you realize this won’t end well for you. It never does.”

“Shut up.” She hissed, before turning her attention back to him. She winced like she was trying to drown out a harsh noise as she spoke. “Chara is not human anymore. It took me a while to figure out- which is stupid in hindsight since everyone else seemed to pick up on it. I don’t know all the details about _how_ this happened to her- she keeps most of her past a secret from me. But what I do know is that her soul has decayed and something has kept her from moving on. “She’s just so, so empty. And that emptiness makes her mad. She wants to stop feeling. She wants to destroy everything so there is nothing left _to_ feel.”

When she finally stopped to breathe he took a moment to try and mull over all of the ridiculous information she had just dumped in his lap. He had been expecting her to tell him she kept doing all this because she hated them. Or because it was fun. Or because she was trying to find something. In truth those reasons were still there in their more primal forms but he had expected these reasons to be _her_ reasons. Not the reasons of some imagined voice in her head.

Then again this could help explain why someone would keep doing such horrible things over and over again. He felt his bones sinking into his seat in defeat. Her mind was broken.

***

“She uh, its, um-“ Rain rubbed at her face and made a frustrated sound. “God, I have been waiting so long to tell you all this and now I can’t even remember how to talk. Just, just believe me when I say that I’m trying, ok?  She’s real. Chara is real. I was scared and angry and I let her do horrible things because it was easier to just look away and not ask questions- but I can’t afford to do that anymore. She’s not human anymore. But I am. _I still am, Sans_. And I want this to stop.”

There was a split second of hesitance before he said anything, but she noticed it. He leaned back in his seat. “heh. wow. that’s some crazy stuff. i mean, i’m not sure how much if it i believe but… pretty crazy.”

_“Let me translate that for you: he thinks you are nuts. You are the stray Froot Loop lost in his box of Cheerios.”_

 He tapped on his ketchup bottle, making soft clinking sounds with his boney fingers before bring it up to the gap behind his teeth and pouring a generous amount into his mouth. Rain balked at this but said nothing.

_“That’s disgusting.”_

_“Says the one who has been eating swampy sausages since forever.”_

_“Wait, does this mean that when we killed him was he bleeding ketchup? Oh my god, I think he was bleeding ketchup! I bet the lazy trash bag keeps a stash on him or something!”_

“so then what-“

Rain started to laugh, hand flying up to her mouth and eyes going a little deranged. She didn’t know why she was laughing. She had been stressed out for so long and this just pushed her over the edge.

All those nightmares, all those times she had watched Chara kill Sans and she had literally felts the sins on her back and the blood on her hands- had it been all been ketchup?

Sans acted like her unexplained laughter didn’t make him uncomfortable. “what’s so funny?” He tried to look friendly. “come on, i’m always up for a good joke. or a bad one.”

Before she could think to stop herself she blurted out. “It’s ketchup! You bleed ketchup! All this time it’s been ketchup!”

His smile did not exactly slip away. He was a skeleton after all. But it did seem to become a rather strained, tacked-on sort of thing. He took another generous gulp from the bottle. When he set it back down again the lights in his eyes were gone.

The look ripped Rain from the present and threw her right back into the Judgment Hall. Her laughter died with the same sudden motion that it had started with.

“heh. you’d like that, wouldn’t you? would it make you feel better? is it easier to not to feel anything for us if we don’t bleed like you do when we die?”

Ah. Her voice wasn’t working again. Chara seemed to be holding it back for her own amusement. Several half sentences fell out of her mouth with all the grace and consistency of mud.

She wanted to apologize.  She wanted to say that he was wrong. It had _hurt_ to see the things she had seen. But she had gone through so many phases between then and now and it had left her tired and disoriented.

Denial, begging, pain, numbness, maniac amusement at the situation- she had cycled through it all until it had boiled down to one dull point: she existed.  She was continuing forward just for the sake of… _something_. Anything. Nothing.

But when she had wanted to give up she would remember the bleached bone and the gold light on the bloodstained murals of the Judgment Hall and she would tell herself _no_. She could handle the sight of her blood but the sight of his? No. 

To see herself transition from scattering dust to spilling blood so easily was horrible. To have it driven home that that’s what she had been doing the whole time and that leaving the Underground would not make the violence stop had been a sticking point. Whenever she thought about giving up she would look back on that moment and decide that whatever she was going through now was slightly better than going back to _that_.

And now she had learned that her symbol was probably fucking _ketchup_!

Unfortunately she couldn’t find the proper words needed explain that to him. Even if she did it would probably still be inappropriate. So she found herself stuck sitting there with her mouth hanging open as a mortifying slew of unfinished words choked her right there in front of him.

Sans eventually decided to show her a little mercy and let it go, if only so he would not have to listen to her continue to splutter. He waved away the subject with a sigh. “forgetaboutit. i don’t think I really want to hear any more of the grim details anyway.” His black grin twitched and the light slowly came back into his eyes. He took a deep breath and made himself settle down. “welp, its getting late. actually, it’s getting early. the lights are going to come on soon and i have been up all night. i got jobs i need to hurry up and get to if i don’t want to miss my breaks.

"listen, i don’t know how much of this demon nonsense i believe. i’d have to look into it before i’d say i believe you. but that look on your face, i know that look. i know that you really are trying. can’t say i know why you want to start now after so much time- but i want you to know i appreciate it.”

He got up and offered her a hand. She hesitated a moment in surprise before taking it. She waited for the whoopee cushion to go off but nothing was there. Her heart sank a little but she didn’t allow her disappointment to show. That’s ok. She didn’t really deserve it yet anyway.

When Sans saw the way her limbs shook with the effort of pulling herself up to her feet again he decided to comment on it. “sheesh lady, you look _bone_ tired. you gonna be moving on or would you like a place to crash for a couple of hours? i got a shed with good insulation and i can grab you a sleeping bag if you want. hope you understand why offering you a room in the main house is kinda off the table.” He winked as he lead her back out into the cold, waving a hand over his shoulder and calling for Grillby to put the meal on his tab. He was back to acting like his casual old self again.

Rain smiled. It was a true smile. It felt like she was finally looping back around to something good again. She looked off in the direction she had planned to go, then glanced at the shed off in the distance. “Actually, yeah. I’d appreciate that. Thanks.” She hugged herself to combat the chill when a particularly cold breeze chased after them on their way to the shed.

She wanted to get the hell away from Papyrus as soon as possible but she was too worn out to go very far any time soon. Sitting in the booth had given her mussels enough time to seize up and the adrenaline was dying down now too. Besides, Chara wouldn’t be able to pull anything for a while. She hadn’t bothered telling Sans how many resets it had taken her to save his brother but they had been dying for quite a while and were both mentally and physically wiped out.

When Sans unlocked the door to the shed and shoved it open for her she couldn’t help but feel relief. Things were getting better. Technically she was back at square one but even that was a victory to be cherished after all she had gone through.

She tried to step inside but was stopped when something soft brush up against her arm. To her great surprise Sans had shed his coat and was offering it to her. “here. you look cold. may as well hang on to it just in case you still get chilly in there.”

She looked down at that worn blue coat with the kind of disbelief one would expect to see on the face of someone being handed a blank check. “You’re giving me this?”

“lending.”

She rubbed the soft white fur between her fingers. “Why?”

He shrugged, his gaze straying off towards the direction of the discarded fire poker and Dogaressa's abandoned cloak somewhere off in the snow-clogged distance. “you finally got rid of your old one.”

 


	33. A letter stained in crimson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A letter stained in crimson 
> 
> *********
> 
> Rain gets to experience the varying levels of hospitality available to her in Snowdin  
> The world learns that Samuel is a dick.

Sans followed a few paces behind her. She wandered into the back of the room and sat down in the corner, back pressed against the wall. She hadn’t put on the coat yet. She held it close and kept rubbing the soft white fur of the hood. Apparently the gesture had meant a lot to her. It made him feel a little guilty about what he was about to do next.

Not a lot, just a little.

Not quite turning his back to her, he opened up a panel in the wall. “you must really like my coat huh?”

“Yes. Thank you. Again.”

“no problem. thought it would be a good reminder for you when you hit a rough patch in whatever it is your going through.”

“It will. I won’t forget. I promise.”

His eyes darted from his coat to her face. “i can tell. judging by the look on your face, i’d even go so far as to say the gesture fills you with… determination.”

“yeah I-”

_Click._

The gaps between the too-wide bars buzzed with static for a brief second. After that everything went back to normal for the most part, except for the air shimmering a little between the gaps.

“What was that?” She got up, leaving the coat on the floor and rushing over to the bars. “What did you do?” Quick as a whip she reached out to slide her hand between the bars and hissed between her teeth when her hand slammed up against the magical barrier, making her fingers tingle.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

“-i’d even go so far as to say the gesture fills you with… determination.”

She jumped to her feet and rushed forward.

_Click._ Too slow.

Her hip slammed up against the wall and she stumbled back, glaring daggers at him. “What the hell Sans?”

He rubbed at the back of his neck. “sorry. didn’t want to risk it.”

She paced back and forth a few times, eyes rarely leaving his. When she saw no unprotected gaps in the wall she slowly sank back down to the floor. “So what now?” She demanded. “Are you going to kill me again?”

“i’d really rather not. i don’t want to tempt you to reset the timeline, remember? besides, i made a promise to someone better than myself - better than you- and i prefer to keep my promises. even if you are a pain in the ass. so, you just sit tight and catch some z’s while i mull over all this new information, capiche? i will go find someone more qualified to handle this situation and she can take things from there.”

Her eyes widened in panic. “Sans, no! You can’t! If you tell Undyne I’m here and leave me trapped like this she will kill me!”

“hey i didn’t specify who i would tell.” He winked, then his eyes turned black. “that kinda depends on how well you behave. just stay away from my brother and you will be fine.”

“Sans, let me out.”

“nah.”  There was a faint buzzing and the smell of ozone. His figure became blurred by shadow.

“Sans don’t-”

“see ya.” There was a crack of static and he was gone.

***

Sans plopped down in his seat at the sentry station guarding the entrance to Hotland. He ran a hand over his skull and leaned back in his chair. He gave a loud sigh, body going limp as he exhaled. His eyes were heavy and when he closed them it was a struggle to crack them back open again.

A lot of things were buzzing around in his mind right now. Listening to his thoughts voice themselves was tiring. He needed a moment to rest. A moment to think. And that was something he just couldn’t have if he let that little terror run free. So for now he was going to keep her where she was, playing on a gamble that she wouldn’t force a true reset if she was stuck for a few hours, so he could buy enough time to process this and maybe get some fresh input.

Besides, he had jobs to do. He couldn’t afford to be late to all of his legally required breaks!

He made an amused sound at his own joke.

It was so tempting to just hand her over to Undyne and let her handle it. Maybe the king could catch her soul if they held her down. Asgore had been able to catch all the others after all.

He frowned. Did a promise still count if the timeline it had been meant for had been destroyed? Was he really still responsible for her? He rocked his head back and stared at the ugly mess of stalactites hanging over him like looming swords. “god, what am i going to do with her, Dings? this is a mess.”

He listened carefully to the ambiance around him, waiting. He hoped he would get an answer. To hear anything at all was rare but he was relatively close to the lab and sometimes that helped.

…He heard something.

One could have easily reasoned that it was just the wind. Or the sound of the bubbling magma off in the distance. One could say it was his imagination when the strange garbled sounds reached him like a sigh, passing before most people would have ever been able to understand that they had heard something odd. But Sans was nothing if not observant.

He wasn’t sure what to feel once he deciphered its meaning but at least it was something to go on. “if you say so.” he murmured, closing his eyes.

That settled it. He was going to have to go visit his friend and see what could be done. All his options were dubious at this point but he still trusted _his_ judgment. Because for the first time in a very, very long time, the whisper had spoken of hope.

***

The shed creaked a little in the night. She kind of liked the sound. It was a relaxing sound to focus on as time passed her by. She had given up on trying to get out. Aside from a broken plastic dog bowl and her raw fists she didn’t have anything in her little cell that could wear down the magic enough for her to get out. The windows were protected and the walls were solid.

She didn’t have the sleeping bag he had promised. He had left without going to retrieve it. All she had was a musty smelling dog bed to sit on while she shivered and cursed under her breath.

_“I hope you know I saw this one coming from a mile away."_

"shut up."

_"I don’t get why you keep trying to reach out to that one."_ She sighed, _"He’s as far gone as we are. He’s just gone in the opposite direction. He’s Hopeless you know. And he doesn’t trust you.”_

“Yeah well, whose fault is that?”

_“Yours as well as mine.”_

She made a displeased sound. “Fair point.” She stuck her hands in her coat pockets and fell over onto the dog bed, limbs all bunched up together so she could fit. “This sucks.” Her fingers became entangled in a mess of sticky ketchup squeeze packets. She made a disgruntled sound and began to fling handfuls of gooey wrappers out onto the floor. The smell of tomatoes permeated the small space as a result. A crumpled piece of paper fell out onto the floor in her frenzy.

She paused mid throw and picked it up, grimacing at the ketchup stains on its uneven edges. It was addressed to Papyrus.

_“Are you going to read it?”_

“I shouldn’t go reading peoples letters. It’s probably just a grocery list or something.” She declared with uncertainty.

_“If that’s all it is then read it!”_

“Go to sleep, Chara.”

_“ **Read it**!”_

She grunted in surprise when her hands started to yank the note open, tearing its folded edges with clumsy force.

She grit her teeth.“Hey, knock it off!”  She was the one in control. This body was hers. These hands were hers. She forced herself to be calm. Anger, fear, loneliness, sadness; these emotions were fuel for Chara. They twisted her, aggravated her and gave her strength. She had to be calm.

Rain thought for a moment while she flipped the paper this way and that, trying to calm them both. If the letter had been important would he have left it with her? “If I read it for you, do you promise to be quiet so I can sleep?”

Chara considered it for a moment. _“I will allow it.”_

Rain rolled her eyes and unfolded the red stained note. A compromise then. A little evil for a little good.

It was a long letter. It scrawl was quick and messy. Almost nothing had been capitalized. She read it aloud for the sake of learning to use her own voice again.

 

_Papyrus, if you are reading this then one of two things has happened. thing one: i came home and passed out on the couch covered in ketchup stains again and now you are trying to wash my coat. if that’s the case then please put this note back and don’t read it._

_also, my coat is dry clean only so, yeah._

_thing two (the bad thing): i’m dead. gone. caput. dusted. something got to me and i’m sure right about now you are feeling pretty raw. you are probably about to do something foolish. Bro, i wrote this all down so i could tell you: **don’t**._

_i doubt you’re thinking of hurting whoever did this. that’s never been you. then again i have never been around to see how you react when i die so maybe i’m wrong. i won’t judge. i’m sure you're angry either way._

_but that’s not the point. the point is you are still alive. that’s what matters to me. that’s all that’s ever mattered to me. and even though you may feel like all the happiness has been sucked right out of you, i know you are strong enough to pull through and hold on long enough for things to get better. you have always been really cool like that._

_look, i know i keep a lot of stuff from you. it’s not stuff i ever wanted to burden you with. but i need you to know the truth now so that you can stay safe. you know all that space-time stuff i used to mess around with? i was tracking an anomaly._

_and if i’m dead then that means i found it-  or rather it found me. the anomaly is a living thing, Paps. and its nasty. its hungry. for what i don’t know. but it keeps resetting time. over and over again. you have no idea how many times we have relived the same days because of that thing. (though i suspect you have sensed something wrong for a while now too and just kept it to yourself for whatever reason. you are pretty sharp after all.)_

_its killed you before, Paps. i’m sure of it. but maybe this time i saved you. maybe this time it will be satisfied with just me. maybe this time if you lay low, it will find what it wants and you will be ok._

_i know you will want to go and find them. either out of a need for revenge or a feeling of pity. but please, i’m begging you: **Don’t.**_

_let them go. let them do their thing. call it my dying wish. i know it hurts but maybe it’s better this way. chances are in a few days or weeks they will reset the timeline again and it will be like none of this ever even happened. it will be nothing more than a bad dream to us. this run probably won’t even matter. i’ll be fine. i’ll come back._

_and if not? well, you always were the strong one. be strong enough to let them go. let me go and live a good life._

_your loving brother- sans._

The room fell into silence. Rain’s voice was quiet and cracked.  To her credit Chara did not make a sound. She let Rain lie back down, the letter still held at am arm’s length.

So this is why Papyrus had known about resets back in Waterfall all those timelines ago. He had disobeyed his brother’s dying wish and put himself in jeopardy to try and help her. 

“Papyrus you idiot.” She whispered. “I wish I could have been as good a person as you turned out to be. I wish I could be half the person you think I am.”

Maybe it was a good thing he had tried. Chara would have won if he hadn’t been there with Undyne. By choosing action over inaction he had saved that timeline. That’s was something Sans had always failed to do. But Papyrus had also prolonged her own personal suffering and part of her didn't know how to feel about that.

The world was full of strange things.

She stared at the letter until sleep took her. Her last conscious thought being that of a letter stained in red.

_***_

_This was not a dream. This was a memory…_

_“What are you drawing now, creep?” He demanded, candy-tainted breath assaulting her as he loomed over her from behind. “I want to see! Come on, what are you afraid of?”_

_She lowered herself over the chair she was using as a table, shoulders hunched and hands gripping the crayons tight as she glared at him out of the corner of her eye. “Go away.” She growled, hiding the drawing as best she could with her body._

_“I bet you’re drawing something evil again, aren’t you?”_

_“Samuel, be nice. Don’t call her names.” The teacher warned from the other end of the row of chairs where she was talking to one of the other kids._

_Samuel made a face at the teacher then turned back to her.“I need the orange and the blue crayons.”_

_“Use your own.”_

_“I can’t. They broke and I had to throw them away.” He whined, stomping his foot as he pouted._

_“You don’t have to throw away broken crayons you idiot!” She snapped, still staying low over her drawing._

_“You aren’t even using those colors. You are only using the red and black!” He tried to pry the crayons from her hand._

_“No! Stop it! Let go! These are mine!”_

_His fat face started to turn red with anger as he shoved her aside and tried to take what he could._

_“Samuel!” The teacher snapped._

_“Woah.” He gasped, looking down at the drawing she had been protecting. “Sister Smith! Sister Smith! Look!” He pointed excitedly at the drawing, seeing the opportunity and taking it._

_She tried to save her drawing but he snatched it away, waving it in front of the teacher like a victory banner. “She was drawing demons again!”_

_“Give it back, you pig!” She snapped, gritting her teeth as he kept her away with an outstretched hand.The teacher made another objection to name calling that fell on deaf ears. “They are not demons. They are monsters. There is a difference! Sister Smith told us to draw something from our favorite story. That’s the monster king. It’s from a folk story!”_

_Samuel’s pig-like nose wrinkled as he smirked at her._

_“You were supposed to draw your favorite_ bible _story.” The teacher amended, upset that her troubled student was once again straying from the path. “We have been through this before. You can’t keep drawing these things in church. They are not right. They are inviting a negative spirit into the classroom.” The teacher took up the paper and sighed, disappointed. This was the second time she had been caught drawing “demons” in Sunday class and the fourth time she had drawn something that the adults considered “disturbing.”_

_Samuel chose this moment to open his ugly mouth to pipe: “My mom says that story_ is _about demons, Sister Smith! There used to be demons that would try to steal souls and lead them down to hell but then a holy man locked them under the mountain because God told him to.” He cast a sly eye at the drawing and feigned confusion. “Why did she draw the demon king instead of the saint, Sister Smith?”_

_The teacher brushed off his remark but all the other children where set alight with chatter at this revelation, eager to gossip about the latest issue with their oddball classmate._

_“Honey, you promised if I let you draw you would stop doing this.” The teacher chided, pinching the bridge f her nose.  
_

_She clenched her fists, tears pricking at her eyes. “They are_ monsters _, not demons! I wasn’t drawing demons!” She insisted._

_“Monsters are just another word for something evil, sweetie. Why don’t you draw something else? Something from the Bible? How about Noah’s Arc? You could draw lots of animals instead.”_

_“I want to finish my monster drawing first.” She pleaded._

_Her teacher had reached the end of her patience. She sighed and held out her hand. “Give me your crayons.”_

_She clutched them closer to her chest, rage flaring up inside of her when she saw Samuel’s smug smirk out of the corner of her eye. Everyone was staring at her now, waiting to see what she would do._

_She heard one of the kids whisper something to another classmate and giggle._

_Her lip quivered in defeat as she handed over her crayons._

_Samuel didn’t even wait for her to sit back down before he started to scavenge. “Sister Smith, if she’s not going to use those can I have the orange one?”_

_She was sentenced to sitting in her chair and pretending she didn’t hear her classmates whispering about her while Samuel got his desired crayons and returned to his seat, the one right  next to her own. “Should have just given me what I wanted, freak.” He sniffed. “Bet your dad is going to be real mad at you when he sees that creepy thing you made.”_

_She crossed her arms, grinding her teeth as silent tears streamed down her face._

_“Hey, you paying attention to me, you little demon worshiper? Listen to me when I’m talking!” He shoved her shoulder._

_She snapped. With a frustrated scream she rounded on him, small trembling hands balling into fists and crashing against his stupid pig nose. “Leave me alone!” She shrieked._

_He fell backwards onto his butt, blood trickling from his nose. For a moment he gaped at her in shock, then he began to sob like a baby._

_“Chara!” The teacher yelped, aghast, eyes flaring in anger. “We do not hit our brothers and sisters!”_

_She flung an accusing finger at the crying boy. “But he’s_ not _! He’s_ not _by brother! He’s just a bully! How come you don’t yell at anyone else when they push me or pull my hair?”_

_“We. Do. Not. Hit! Cathy," The teacher turned to one of the other girls in the room, "help him please while I deal with Chara.” The teacher was coming for her now, taking her by the wrist and dragging her out of the room._

_Everyone was alight with shocked conversation. Samuel was still bawling on the floor, holding his nose while a friend came to help him._

_As the flustered young woman yanked her along down an empty hallway, Chara’s hands balled back into fists.That had felt… good. Her whole body trembled and her anger boiled inside of her like liquid fire. She was crying but she didn’t care. It felt good to make him suffer. No one else was going to help her anyway. Even as her stomach filled with dread when she realized the kind of trouble she would be in for this once her parents found out, she still felt a dark, satisfied sort of pride in herself for standing up to him; for doing what the teacher was too weak to do herself._

_It felt good to be the strong one._

_***_

It couldn’t have been more than three or four hours before she was woken up by the sound of someone ramming against the shed door, forcing it open a few inches with a shuddering groan. She sat bolt upright and muttered a curse. For a moment her mind swam in confusion as the dream lingered. She snatched her hand away from an imagined adversary and rubbed her wrist, glancing around the room in confusion while she tried to remember who and where she was.

“Chara?” She whispered into the dark.

There was no answer. Chara had slipped into hiding, shrouding herself in dreams.

That… that had not been one of Rain’s dreams. Had that really been…?

Another loud thump disrupted her thoughts and the door skidded open. “Hello?” She rubbed at the bags under her eyes and pulled the coat a little tighter around her body. “Sans, is that you?”

“Human! There you are! I have been waiting all morning for you.”

She groaned into her hands. Yay! More complications! “Papyrus don’t you have a job to get to or something? How did you know I was in here?”

“I heard Sans open the door last night. It was very loud. When you did not come over like we planned I began to worry that maybe Sans thought I was still trying to capture you and thus locked you up in the shed for me.”

She listened to his footsteps thump across the creaking wood floor. When he marched into view he had a fuzzy green and red blanket slung over his shoulder. She had to crane her neck to look him in the eye from her spot on the floor. Good god he was tall.

“Oh dear.” His face fell into a look of shame and embarrassment when he saw her locked away on the other side of the room. “Human, I am so sorry! This place was meant to hold a _dangerous_ human. It was never meant for someone like you. I hope you don’t think this is how I treat all of my cool friends and house guests!”

“Friends?”

“Of course! I chose to take you under my wing as both my protégé and my friend when you accepted my mercy after all, didn’t I?” He puffed out his chest. “Do not be intimidated, dear human. For although I, the Great Papyrus, am no doubt an awe-inspiring, daunting figure to behold, at the end of the day I am still just a cool dude who puts his gloves on one finger at a time like everyone else in the world!” His eyes flicked back and forth. “Well, except for ghosts. They can’t wear gloves… And slimes. They don’t have hands-” He held up a victorious hand. “-but other than that!”

She gave him a warm smile, the scar on her lip tugging one side higher than the other. “Yeah. I guess you are a pretty cool guy, Papyrus.”

“I know!” He put his hands on his hips and gave her an expectant look. “So, are you going to come inside?”

“Can’t”

“Why not?”

“Have to stay here and keep out of trouble.”

“Nonsense! With me here to guide you I guarantee you shall stay on the straight and narrow! It was my promise to help you after all.”

She grimaced. She doubted he knew the time-twisting extremes he had gone through to keep to that oath.

He finally seemed to notice the way the air between the bars was shimmering and scowled, the gaps behind his last set of teeth seeming to narrow into a concentrated line. How strange. 

“What the heck is this?” He flicked the barrier with a gloved hand. His eyes widened with realization. “Oh! Oh human, I am _so_ sorry! I had no idea he installed this. I mean, I think I remember him installing it shortly after I had finished my own master craftsmanship,“ he gestured to the bars, “but I never asked him what it was for. Oh that Sans!” He was waving his arms around in exasperation as he turned to the panel on the wall and opened it up. “He never pays attention, I swear! He wasn’t supposed to do this. Hold on. I will get you right out.”

“Uh I don’t know whether or not that’s a good-”

_Click._

“-idea.”

“There. All better.” His smile was just about as wide as the bars he stepped between to meet her. He draped the blanket over her shoulders and gently helped her to her feet.

“Uh, thanks. I guess I will be going now.”

His face fell. “Going?”

“Yeah I should probably get going.”

He looked crestfallen. “Oh. I see. I understand. I mean, I thought we could hang out and be cool friends today but I should have expected that you would have other things to do. Everyone says humans are very important after all so I suppose it only makes sense that you have to go do a lot of very important significant activates today. Alone. Without me.”

Damn, the gangly little marshmallow could sure twist her heart. She wanted nothing more than to tell him she would be his friend and do whatever things cool skeleton friends do when they hang out together but it was best to cut him off now while she still could. She patted him on the shoulder. “Sorry. It’s just not a good idea for me to be here, ya know?” She stifled a yawn. “I’m not good luck.”

“Nonsense! Everyone in the Underground talks about how a single human soul could save us all. With a soul as powerful as yours I imagine you are tons of good luck!”

She kept smiling as she brushed past him and slipped out the door. “Well, anyway, thanks for letting me out.”

He came trotting out after her, seemingly oblivious to her attempts to break things off. “Are you going to go through Waterfall?”

“No other way for me to go really.”

“And then to the king’s castle?”

She pressed her lips into a bitter line. “Eventually.” Not that she was entirely sure what she would do when she got there.

“Ok. I will let Undyne know you are coming.”

She spun around on her heels. “No, no, no, no. No Undyne.”

“But she knows Waterfall like the back of her own hand! And she’s really brave and strong, like you. You would love her! Also, she’s the Captain of the Royal Guard so once I explain that you are a good human and not a bad one, she could make sure no one tries to bother you on your way to see the king!”

“Trust me. It won’t work out that way.” One of her scars twinged at the thought of running into The Underground’s heroine again. She rubbed at mark on her left side where a blow had narrowly missed her soul and grazed her ribs on more than one occasion. “And I’m not a fan of surprise body piercings.” She added under her breath.

He scowled at her, oblivious.  “Um, ok. Well at least let me call my brother. I’m pretty sure he has several stations that you will be passing by anyway and-”

“Hah! No thanks. I’m not in the mood for shish-kabobs either.”

His frown deepened. “Okayyyy. I don’t know what those are?”

She grimaced. So far her attempts at a non-crazy sounding conversation were not going well. She had to remember that most people couldn’t hear her internal thought process and instantly understand her out-of-timeline references. “I will be fine on my own.”

He was starting to look rather distraught now. “Maybe I should go with you. You still look really tired. Do humans need to take lots of naps? Sometimes I have to carry my brother while he’s napping. Perhaps I can do the same for you.”

Her eye twitched. “Let’s not.”

He put his hands on his hips in exasperation. “Human I am very worried about you. You don’t look well and your clothes are dirty and full of holes. If you are not going to stay here and let me help you then the least you could do is let me call someone else so they can look out for you on my behalf!”

She stood there for a moment. Her outward appearance was of someone deep in thought but internally, she was just screaming oddly creative curses out of frustration. Her eye twitched a little more. “Fine. If I stay for a few hours and sleep inside will you let me go without telling anyone?”

He held out his hand. He was all smiles again. “Deal!”

She didn’t so much shake his hand as just sort of limply slap it before plodding over to the house and nudging the door open with her foot.

Lucky for her Chara seemed to still be sequestered away inside her old memories without showing any signs of waking up.

She cast a sleepy eye across the room. The carpet’s colors hurt her eyes.

Papyrus gave her a little nudge forward when she lingered in the doorway. “Go ahead and make yourself at home. Go on, don’t be shy. Oh, and wipe your feet please.”

She grunted her compliance. “Where do you want me?”

“Go wherever you want. My brother usually prefers to sleep on the couch. I can’t imagine why. There is always a rogue spring that digs into my hip whenever I try it.”

She collapsed onto the couch. Sure enough there was a rogue spring waiting for her.

Papyrus started to rattle off a list of the things in the house. “See that? That’s my brother’s pet rock. But I’m the one that always has to feed it. And over there is our trash can. I have a friend on the Undernet who always talks about visiting the trash. I don’t know why though. But if that’s your thing you can visit it whenever you like!” He carried on like this for several minutes. Most of it was just white noise to her. She didn’t feel like admitting that she had broken into this place a few times in the past and was already familiar with her surroundings, if not the stories behind them.

She had never been able to worm her way into their garage though. Chara had torn the house apart on multiple occasions trying to find the right key but had had no such luck. The cluttered state of Sans’s room usually put her in a bad mood and caused her leave early.

Rain’s eyebrow twitched in thought as she recalled her misadventures in Sans’s room. The place was a dump wrapped in an enigma: full of strange things that made no sense.

He also had a surprising amount of fanfiction drafts for something called _Earthbound_.

She soon buried all of her questions about Sans’s room, it was a place she didn’t want to draw attention to in case Chara woke up.

Papyrus was still twittering on about his home, his brother and various other stories while Rain inched closer and closer to sleep- only to have it pulled out from under her like a rug when Papyrus turned on the TV. Blaring music and flashing lights assaulted her senses with all the elegant subtlety of a bottle full of firecrackers. She jerked back into a full state of awareness and fell off the couch with an undignified squawk amidst a graceless act of flailing of limbs.

“Oh, sorry. Let me just turn down the volume.”

Rain glared at the screen as a familiar shape wheeled out onto the set and began to introduce the show with an overly loud, grandiose voice. The amount of flashing lights on display were enough to make her worry for the first time in her life about the dangers of epilepsy and whether it was something she could spontaneously develop. She was only a few seconds into the show and already she was on the verge of getting a headache.

Papyrus turned the volume down by half, explaining that Sans always seemed to like keeping the TV on when he slept as he offered her a blanket.

When he wandered back into the kitchen she tugged the blanket low over her eyes and crawled off into a corner where the arm of the couch obstructed her view of the flashing lights. She pressed her back against the wall and tried to drown out Mettaton’s voice.

She didn’t have particularly strong feelings about the entertainment bot one way or the other but Chara seemed to have a thing against him and she began to worry that the show would wake her up.

“Are you hungry? I know Sans took you to Grillby’s but if you are still in need of some proper food I made plenty of Friendship spaghetti while I was waiting for you  to get back. I also have…” He hummed in concentration as he checked several containers, “Work Ethic Celebration spaghetti, Midnight Spaghetti and Cooking Lesson spaghetti.”

She could hear him shuffling things around in the kitchen. She idly wondered what the difference was between friendship spaghetti and normal spaghetti. Also why did he _only_ have spaghetti?

“I hope you like sprinkles!”

Oh. Sprinkles. The difference was sprinkles.

Papyrus made a distressed sort of whining Nyeh that reached her from the kitchen. “Oh dear. I forgot I left the microwave out in the snow!” He strode back into the room with a container of congealed sauce, sprinkles and wadded up noodles. “We will just have to eat it cold!” He paused and tilted his head when he found that his guest had wandered from the couch. He spotted her huddled up in the corner with the blanket draped over her head. “Human, are you alright?”

She watched his boots from under the hem of the blanket as he quietly strode across the room and crouched down next to her. “Are you feeling ok?”

This was weird. All of this was weird. Weird and scary. What even was this? How was she supposed to function in a timeline where she didn’t know what was going to happen? She forced a smile. “I’m fine.”

He set the container down on the arm of the couch and halved the volume on his show again. “Are you sure? You can tell me the truth. The Great Papyrus is a fantastic listener.”

She ducked her head and sighed. “No. I’m not.”

She could hear his phalanges drumming against his knees as he processed this. He got back to his feet and went upstairs. A minute later he dropped a pile of blankets at her feet. Then he was gone again, hurrying across the room without a word and returning with a chair tucked under each arm.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s alright. Don’t get up.” He wedged the chairs in around her and began draping blankets over them, tucking the stray ends into the couch cushions until she found herself sitting in the back of a tiny makeshift fort. When he was done he knelt down by the entrance and pushed back the curtain to give her a smile. “There. Is that any better?”

She smiled a little. Actually, it sort of was a little better this way. “Yeah.”

“Can I come in?”

She drew her legs up under her and considered this. He shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t be here. It was dangerous. But she felt like she had a good hold on Chara and she ached to have some friendly company for once. “If you want.”

His little smile broadened and he crawled inside, sitting down so that they were shoulder to shoulder. He was tall enough that the moment he sat down he became the center tent pole of their little fort.To her surprise, he managed to keep his voice fairly soft when next he spoke. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk about what’s wrong?” He was drumming his fingers against his leg again, little soft clacking notes.

She shrugged.

“You remind me of Sans a little.” He crossed his arms and huffed. “He tries to act like nothing bothers him but I know that’s not always true. Some days he does what you are doing now and won’t say anything.” He held the blanket-ceiling up with a forearm so he could look down at her. “So on those days, we do this. I think it makes him feel better to have a safe spot… I hope it helps.”

She nodded a little.

“Just remember Human, its ok to be sad sometimes. What’s important is that when life gets you down you eventually find a way to stand back up again! And now that you have me as your friend, I will always be there for you!”

“Papyrus, can I ask you something?”

“Of course!”

“What made you decide to try and help me when you knew I could hurt you?”

He opened his mouth and took a deep breath like he was about to blurt out the most obvious answer in the world but the wind seemed to get caught in his chest. He slowly closed his mouth and lowered his arm, causing the blanket to sag around his head.“Well, if I told you, I'm afraid it would sound rather silly. So you must promise not to laugh.”

“I promise.”

“Well you see, I try not to sleep if I can avoid it. I don’t like the dreams I usually have.” He rubbed at his arms, seeming insecure for a split second. “And I can be much more productive by staying awake! But alas, a nap got the better of me recently. I had a dream just the other night about meeting a human.” He frowned to himself in an attempt to recall the details. “I don’t remember very much of the dream. But I remember that the human I met was very frightened. Naturally, I was trying to capture them so I could be part of the Royal Guard. But they were afraid of the Guard and thought Undyne would hurt them.” He bowed his head in a hint of shame. “Alas, I was so caught up in my own excitement that I did not see that the human was scared and needed help. I think they wanted to be friends... I was not a very good friend to them in the dream.”

She bunched up wads of blanket between her fingers and picked at the lint. She strained to keep her voice even. “Then what happened?”

“Um, then I woke up! Nyeh heh!”

“…Ah.” Then he had died.

“Like I said, I don’t remember much about the dream. But that sense of regret lingered for quite some time. And then lo and behold- my brother said that you were coming to Snowdin! I thought to myself: Papyrus, this is no coincidence! This is destiny! Truly this dream is a warning. This human must need guidance and friendship and it is your job to be that friend!”

“Were there… any other dreams?”

“A few.” He admitted with a sad note. “But I wouldn’t give up on the human in those dreams. Even if they had given up on themselves.” He looked down at her and bumped her with his shoulder. “And now I won’t give up on you.” He laughed a little and rested his back against the wall. His spine and armor made scraping sounds against the wall but she ignored it.

“I must admit Human, I am glad you turned out the way you are. You kind of scared me at first.” He tucked his chin up against his collarbone. “Sans said some not-so-nice things about you. And in the dark you did look rather intimidating. I was afraid you wouldn’t listen when you ran up to me like that.”

Rain felt like she was going to drown in guilt. She had killed him several times before she had been able to throw away that horrible fire poker. She had thrown herself into the ice cold river to wash away the dust several times.

_When she finally managed to stop the blow, her legs gave out and he caught her. “Wowie!” He said, nearly breathless as he tried to hold her up. In the end they both fell to their knees. “You didn’t do a violence!” He spluttered._

_Rain gave a strangled cry, feeling the iron hot in her hand as the tip remained angled down at his back, her arm shaking with the effort to hold back the strike. Letting go felt as draining as trying to move the entire mountain but at long last she threw the weapon into the snow behind him. Free at last of its cold weight, she clung to him and sobbed._

_She could feel his warm breath against her ear as he held her. His arms were shaking. His whole body was shaking. It was so bad that she could hear his bones rattling._

_He had known the dangers all along. He had not been naive. He had not been oblivious. He had been acting, putting on a brave face because he had to. Every time he did this he had known the risks. He was scared. Yet for some reason he had refused to run. He always refused to abandon her._

_Chara can called him Forgettable._

_Chara had been_ wrong _._

“Me too.” She whispered. “It scared me too.”

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while. Papyrus seemed content to sit there and be her tent pole for as long as she needed him.

Rain shifted positions and stuck her legs out in front of her.

Papyrus frowned when he saw the state of her shoes. Her toes were poking out of the sides. “Oh my god! Human, I was not aware of the poor state of your shoes!”

She cracked an eye open and wiggled her toes at him. “Oh yeah. I think one of the dogs did that on the way over.” She said through a yawn.

Papyrus made a knowing _tsk_. “Oh I know how that is.” He folded his arms and pouted. “Always gnawing on your bones, pillaging your sink cabinets, chewing on your sexy action figures- stealing your laser skulls!”

She snorted. At least she wasn’t the only one spouting nonsense now. “Is that so?”

“It can slip through the gap under the doors you know!” He tapped at her shoe with his own. “They will probably be too big but I can lend you a pair of my boots if you’d like.”

She jerked awake. “No! God no! Never again!”

Papyrus balked at her violent reaction. She looked ready to bolt. “Human, calm down! It was just an offer. If you don’t think you can pull off the color then I won’t take it personally. Not everyone can look this good in orange. I’m just worried about you.”

She pushed herself towards the exit. “I should go.”

His face fell in defeat. “Am I not being a good host?”

She bit her lip. A track of eternal frustrated screaming was playing in her head again. “No. It’s not that. I just-” She fell back into her original spot. “I could still hurt you, ok? And don’t ever offer me shoes again.” She was rubbing at her eyes. “It brings back bad memories.”

He draped an arm around her and pulled her into a one armed hug. “Ok. I’m sorry Human. It won’t happen again.”

“Rain.”

“Hm?”

“You can call me Rain. If you want.”

“Ah. Rain. That is a pretty name!”

“I don’t like it every much.”

“Why not? Weather is super cool! My brother always talks about wanting to see the stars but personally I think seeing a thunderstorm would be neato!” He looked up at the ceiling with a wistful look in his eye, as if he could see through the roof of his home and the nearly unending layers of stone above them to enjoy the nearly forgotten sky above. “Sometimes if I’m having a boring day I like to think about how even though it can’t rain here, it must be raining somewhere else and how cool that must be. Then I feel much better!”

She rested her head against his shoulder. “Yeah, well, storms are not always good. Sometimes they destroy things. People get hurt... I have done a lot of bad things with this name.”

“Well, I bet you could still do a lot of good things with your name too if you tried. Maybe the reason you see so much dark is just because bright lights cast strong shadows!” He rested his head against hers. “I can see still the good in you. I believe in you, Rain. You can make your name great.”

“Like the Great Papyrus?”

His jaw twitched with a content little smile. “Exactly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out Rain isn't the only one who can hide in dreams. She just wasn't in a position to notice until now.   
> ~~~~  
> Also yey for fluff! :3 After so much carnage everyone deserve some time in the Papyrus fort!


	34. He’s like a cat you know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s like a cat you know  
> ****  
> After a good day's rest Rain is recharged and ready to get going.  
> However, she is not the only one who has had a chance to recharge.

She was out like a light in a matter of minutes. For a while Papyrus stayed in the fort with her but when it became clear that she was probably going to be sleeping for quite a while he carefully scooped her up and carried her upstairs. It was quite a feat of strength. One he lamented Undyne not being there to see. She wasn’t particularly big but being made of mostly water and physical substances instead of dust and magic sure made her much heavier than he expected.

He took off her shoes and set them aside before tucking her into his red race car bed. He imagined she would be very impressed by it when she woke up.

He picked out some old clothes he didn’t wear anymore and folded them up next to her shoes and left a little note insisting that she take them. He did not offer her new shoes- but he hoped new socks would be alright. When she woke up and changed he would wash her old clothes and see if he could motivate his brother into sewing up the holes for her.

Once he was certain his guest was comfortable and well cared for he slipped back out into the hall, closed the door behind him and settled down to watch his favorite TV show.

***

_The smell of the yellow flowers was relaxing. It helped calm her. Her yellow dress matched their petals perfectly, like camouflage. It made it harder for anyone to find her.These flowers bloomed in the late spring and stayed with her all through the summer. They painted the mountainside with their organic tribute to the sunny days that nurtured them and grew in thick, tall tufts wherever they were able._

_Her favorite patch of flowers grew wild in an empty lot near the center of the small village; just outside the church building and across from a corner store where she would sometimes buy treats when they came down from the mountain for church._

_She enjoyed these things. They helped keep her calm._

_She heard her name being called in the distance. Her heart stopped for a second. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and lowering herself deeper into the patch of flowers._

_Her teacher had tried to take her to see her parents after getting in another fight but she had escaped and ran outside this time. She had spent the rest of the class period hiding in the flowers._

_The other kids said she was messed up and didn’t like to go near her much anymore. Today she even heard an adult say that the devil was inside her._

_Maybe they were right._

_The last time anyone had told her parents she had been in a fight, there had been hell to pay. They had yelled at her the whole way to their junk-strewn, packrat’s hole of a home. Her dad’s belt had been waiting for her among the garbage when they got there._

_They told her that kids like her ended up in hell._

_Being angry was what the devil wanted._

_Drawing disturbing pictures invited evil into your heart._

_It was not her call to hurt her brothers and sisters._

_She was overacting._

_Boys will be boys._

_Girls gossip._

_She had to turn the other cheek. She had no right hold a grudge against others. It was her job to **love** them whether they were nice to her or not._

_Her parent’s shrieking voices echoed inside her head as she remembered the last time they had gotten angry with her._

_“You know what happens to people who don’t love? Do you know what happens to people who hurt others? They live and die alone. They become demons and are sent to hell. Do you want to go to hell, Chara? Do you want to be a demon? Because what you did was not very Christ-like.”_

_She buried her face against the flowers and tried to drown out the increasingly angry shouts of her mother, who was searching for her in the parking lot._

_She really was trying to be good. She was terrified of what would happen to her if she was bad. Why did it seem so much easier for everyone else to be good? Why was their anger more justified than her own?_

_She was afraid to go home. She had gone a very long time without another confrontation but today she had thrown her books at a girl who had tripped her and called her names. She knew she should feel bad about it but she didn’t. She felt good for getting back at her. She hated these people, even though hating them made her scared. She didn’t regret fighting back but she wasn’t looking forward to the punishment it would bring on later._

_As she grew older she was beginning to grasp that although her parents were praised for their kindness and charming demeanor in public, in private they were angry people. Of course no one believed her when she tried to tell them that._

_Maybe everyone was like that in secret. Maybe that was why everyone got so upset when she displayed her anger like this. They didn’t like being reminded of their secret, ugly selves._

_Maybe humanity was full of secret demons only pretending to love._

_Her mother stopped short in front of her flowerbed. Chara knew at once she had been spotted but still froze in place, praying she was wrong._

_“Chara!’ Her mother snapped, heels clicking against the asphalt as she crossed the street and pulled her to her feet with one hand and bounced a baby on her hip with the other. “I have been looking for you for at least ten minutes! Why didn’t you answer me?”_

_She said nothing, lips pressed into a thin line and her head bowed so low her bangs hid her face. She hung limply in her mother’s grasp; held upright by the adult’s biting grip around her wrist. There was nothing worth saying that would make this any better but there were countless things she could say to make it worse; so she stayed quiet._

_“Look at me when I’m talking to you.” Her mother hissed, yanking her along._

_“Ow! You’re hurting me!” She yelped, stumbling along behind her mother._

_“I am not hurting you.” She objected, white teeth displayed between the snarl of her red lipstick. “Don’t lie to me Chara. I hate it when you lie.”_

_Chara did not object. Arguing the point only ever made it worse. She was, apparently,_ always _lying._

_Her mother was a beautiful woman. Tall and slender with fair skin and a slender form hugged by a striped sundress, her shoulders framed by long red-brown curls housed under a sun hat. Yet the face she wore now was so terribly ugly in comparison. “Why are you ditching your class again? Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?”_

_“I’m sorry.” She whimpered, trying to hold back tears. “The other girls were picking on me. I just needed a place to calm down for a while.”_

_“Stop making yourself cry.” She ordered. “You don’t have anything to cry about. But when your dad finds out you were skipping again?” She laughed, shaking her mane of red-brown curls. “Your head is going to spin, darling.”_

_She was dragged back into the church. She resigned herself to her fate, knowing that once her parents knew the truth there would be hell to pay._

_As she was pulled past the steps with her mother’s nails biting into her skin, something inside of her broke and something_ new _began to assemble itself in its place. A lie had been washed away by a cold conclusion._

_She did not feel sorry for any of these people. These were not good people._

_She despised them. If these were the purest people humanity had to offer, then she hated humanity._

_She wiped away her tears and did not cry again._

_***_

_Her sticky eyes rolled open into a new dream. She discarded the last dream bitterly, hating its existence. She yawned and flexed eternally sore muscles and took in her surroundings. She flung the sheets away and tested her weight against the floor. Aside from the lingering sense of fatigue her condition was quite good. There had been no major wounds for her body to heal this time around and now her mind was refreshed._

_In the end it had been the bed that had woken her. The amount of time she spent sleeping in beds was_ _now_ _far outnumbered by her days sleeping on the ground. She had grown so accustomed to it that the soft embrace of the mattress didn’t feel like it gave her enough support._

_She looked down at the offering set down beside her shoes and read the note._

_New clothes. Good._

_No new shoes though. That could be fixed._

_She checked the closest to see if there was anything else worth taking._

_Nothing._

_She put on the new clothes. The bright colors of the red sweater and dark blue pants were not her favorite. Someone had added the word “cool” to both. She had to roll the pant legs up to keep from tripping in them. The sleeves kept slipping down to completely consume her hands but they would do. Now all she needed was a new weapon._

_The dream faded away into confusion and half scenes._

_A boxful of bones. Why was it even there?_

_A cool hand upon the doorknob._

_Bare feet creeping across the carpet._

_A heavy weight in her hand._

_A smirk of irony._

_The top stair creaked a little._

_There he was, sitting on the couch. Her grip tightened around the scavenged femur._

**_This was not a dream._ **

Rain often found it difficult to awaken from slumber when her eyes were already open. It was like sitting at the bottom of a deep pool of water and slowly rising back to the surface. It was a slow, smothering process. Especially when there was another force thrown in the mix that wanted to keep her under water. She felt that force now, pushing her head down. Weighing in upon her chest. Wrapping around her ankles; trying to pull her back to the bottom of awareness; trying to convince her that yes, yes this _was_ all just a dream. Do not trouble yourself. Sleep. Sleep at the bottom of the pool.

_Through the murky, shimmering darkness she saw Papyrus turn to face her. He waved in greeting. His words distorted by the ripples._

_“Oh! You are awake!...Why do you have one of the bones from my collection?”_

**_This was not a dream._ **

Her awareness finally broke through the watery surface of her smothered state and where one would gasp for breath in a real scenario, Rain instead grasped for control. Chara fought her as she always did. It was an eternity of violent turmoil bottled up into a single fleeting second. But Chara had no LOVE on her side. No XP. No heightened defense. She was an incomplete soul with no buffer between them and Rain had been growing stronger in her resolve.

Rain came out on top.

She threw the bone away with a gasp and watched it bounce and tumble down the stairs. She looked up at Papyrus in a state of horror. It had almost happened again.

“I’m going now.” She tried to keep her voice calm and level but it shook and cracked anyway. “Thanks. Don’t follow me.” She spun around and raced back into his room where her shoes would be.

He was calling out behind her, setting aside a container full of half eaten leftovers and climbing up the stairs after her. “Human? Rain? Are you alright?”

Her shoes. Where were her damn shoes? “I’m fine.” She called, eyes darting around the room. Chara had made a mess of things. Tons of stuff had been pulled out of the closet and scattered across the floor. Pillows had been tossed from the bed, action figures knocked over and blankets flung over furniture. How had she slept through all that? She needed to get better at this. She needed to be a lighter sleeper!

 _“You can’t stay awake forever. If you are going to be the one controlling this body from now on then that means you’re the one that’s going to get tired out while I get to rest.”_ Chara taunted as she was shoved away, shadowy claws still clinging to Rain’s awareness as she refused to be completely banished from her seat of power.

Rain heard the doorknob turn. “Well you don’t sound very ok! Are you sure there isn’t anything the Great Papy-” his words were cut off with a squawk of surprise when Rain slammed her back against the door and forced it shut.

“I’m, um, I’m not decent! Don’t come in.”

She heard a doubtful “Ok” come from the other side of the door.

_“You can’t shield him forever. You can’t save everyone.”_

She felt something smooth and hard in her hand. She looked down and found that she had picked up another stray bone from a nearby box without her knowledge. She flung it to the ground with a frustrated curse while Chara cackled at her failing awareness.

 _“You see, my little brooding Rainstorm, I have been thinking. Every weapon I place in our hands may be a weapon you can turn upon me- but that street goes both ways, doesn’t it? Every unsuspecting object in_ your _hands can be a weapon in_ mine _!”_

She skirted around the box of bones like it was an active minefield. Who kept a box of bones in their room anyway? Where the hell did someone get that many bones? Did skeletons just shed the things like shark teeth or snake skin? Dammit why did the Underground have to be so fucking _weird_?

She glanced out the window. What time was it? Would Sans be back by now? Was he in the house? If he was, would that be a good or bad thing?

One glance at Papyrus’s computer clock told her it was creeping into the early evening hours.

Damn. If Papyrus had gone to work today she must have missed it. Sans was probably still gone but would be back soon. She needed to leave.

 _“Well you will have to walk right past your new friend if you want to do that.”_ Chara purred. To help emphasizes that she still had a decent grasp of control over their body, she took a step towards the box and flexed her fingers. _“How much mastery do you think you have over your body now that we are both rested?”_

“Shut up Chara. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“Um, I have not said anything for a while.” Papyrus said through the door, confused.

Rain screamed internally. Of all the places to relapse, this had to be the worst. This was scary. She should have known things wouldn't fix themselves all at once. She should have never stayed. But now thanks to her stupidity Papyrus was in danger again.

“Can I come in yet?”

“No! Um, uh, just one second.” She latched on to his computer desk and started to drag it over to the door. The old yellowed monitor shook and rattled in place, its vacant screen flickering with bleak light.

Papyrus heard the rattling of its cheap plastic. “Hey, is that my computer? What are you doing in there?”

She pushed the desk up against the door just in time. Papyrus tried to open the door again and was met with resistance. He called out something in either worry or objection but she was too panicked to catch what he had said. Instead she let out an ear piercing shriek of frustration when she felt her fingers snag around another bone when her mad dash across the room brought her within arm’s reach of the box of femurs again. She tossed it away in anger and began to attack the latch on the window.

A blizzard was raging outside, the wind was chaotic and full of snowflakes. Good.

The window slid open with a screech, jerking upward only a few inches at a time. Her arms burned with the effort while she invented a creative string of curses to help describe her situation.

Chara was attacking her again, causing her fingers to slip and her mussels to seize up every time she pushed. _“Not so fun when you’re not the one doing the sabotaging, now is it?”_

She forced the window open a few more inches before giving up. It would have to do. She could get her head through. The rest of her body would just have to follow. It was a two story house; the fall couldn’t be that bad, right?

She slid out legs first, making several failed attempts to slide her limbs through the gap while Chara bucked and kicked in objection. She dangled from the windowsill by her fingertips for a split second while she appreciated what a stupid idea this was before letting herself go.

She fell into the awaiting snow below. Lucky for her no one had shoveled the walkway in a while so the landing was easy on her legs. She hit the ground with a grunt and took off running, stumbling through the snow on shaky legs.The first few steps felt unnaturally heavy as Chara dragged her feet but she soon gave up and chose to pool her energy for later.

Back in the house they heard a loud thump and crash as Papyrus finally pushed open the door, apparently knocking over his computer monitor in the processes if his distressed muttering was anything to go by. “Rain! Wait! Where are you going?” He called out, sticking his head through the small gap in the window. The opening was too narrow for him to get through thanks to his Battle Body. “Come back! I’m worried about you! How well can humans see in a blizzard?”

She didn’t look back. She kept running.

There was a brief second of silence. _Very_ brief. Then she heard the chime and crash of glass shattering against the howl of the wind.

 _“Oh my god.”_ Chara cackled.

Rain looked over her shoulder just in time to see Papyrus flying out of the window, scarf fluttering in the wind for a brief moment before sliding from his shoulders as he twisted around in the air and landed upright in the snow, glass and ice crunching beneath his boots. His scarf fluttered to the ground behind him like a banner of congratulation.

_“Holly shit he nailed the landing!”_

“What the hell even is this?” Rain exclaimed, bursting into a full run. The amount of hesitation there must have been between the skeleton’s last sentence and his decision to jump through his own goddamn _window_ must have been nonexistent!

He was striding after her now, long legs and light bones carrying him across the snow in frustratingly quick strides.The only reason there was any hope at all for her escape was that she had a head start and the snow was coming down thick enough to help blur her movements a bit.

Chara was laughing like never before. Rain was sent the mental image of her doubled over, hitting the ground with one hand and clutching her gut with the other as she laughed. Her devious plans had been cast aside for the pure amusement of Rain’s situation. " _You better run! He’s gaining on you. If he catches up I will kill him!”_

There were some trees up ahead. Hopefully she could lose him in those then slip back into the blizzard. She put her head down and put all of her effort and Determination into going as fast as she could.

Tonight wasn’t going to be much fun.


	35. One on One/ Two Against One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~One on One~~ / **Two Against One**  
>  Rain tries to sneak past Undyne

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I just realized that this month marks the one year anniversary of when I started writing this. ^_^

Two seconds into his arrival and he already knew something had gone wrong. Now it was just a question of how badly he had fucked up this time.

“dammit.” He hissed between his teeth, looking down at the small puddle of snow beneath his slippers. Someone had left the shed door ajar. He took slow deliberate steps down the short hall that lead to the main room. His hands were shoved as deep into his pant pockets as they would go and his shoulders were hunched as if he expected to be dealt a blow when he rounded the corner.

The room was empty.

He looked up at the ceiling and sighed through a list of his favorite curses. “of course.” His soul was twisted in a mix of draining acceptance and something that sat between dread and anger. He flicked the still-open panel on the shield generator. No struggle. No damage. She had been let out. “Dammit, Papyrus.”

He turned back around and yanked the shed door open. He didn’t bother to close it behind him as he trudged off towards the house. If she hadn’t outright bolted the second she got out, Papyrus would have taken her inside, so he had to check there first.

 He could have easily teleported to make things faster but by now whatever was fated to happen already had. He didn’t want to see what was waiting for him inside. He didn’t want to know the truth. With every step that sticky ball of anxiety and resignation grew thicker and heavier in his chest. With each step he took he tried to mentally brace himself for what he would find.

The door was unlocked.

He stepped inside, clinging to the doorknob like a man hanging from a cliff instead of standing in the doorway of his own home. “Bro?” He called out, smile having faded into a thin, unpleasant line of worry. The TV was on but no one was there. A half eater contain of leftovers was laying on its side. “Papyrus?”

He slipped inside and closed the door behind him and crept up the stairs, wary and ready to defend himself if he had to. “human? anyone?”

The door to his brother’s room was unhinged.

“oh no.” He rushed to the door and pushed his way through. The scene on the other side was a mess. A broken computer monitor, furniture piled up against the door, a shattered window- everything not bolted down had been flung across the room. The struggle must have been pretty crazy.

“no. no, no, no! not again. dammit why didn’t i take her somewhere more secure?” His eyes darted around the room, waiting for that moment when he saw the dust. But… the room was empty.

He looked at the broken window and felt a brief ray of hope. Maybe his brother had gotten away.

He stuck his head out of the jagged hole in the window and squinted out into the darkness of the oncoming night. One short teleport later and he was back outside, scanning the area for clues.

When he saw the scarf he froze in place and his heart stopped. Past images of his brother’s death assaulted him and for a brief moment he felt _nothing_ once again. He stared at it for a long while with his eyes dark and his hands balled into fists. But when he went to go retrieve it, footsteps echoing across the timeline in an act of synchronicity, he realized that this time something was off. The scarf was the only thing there.

No Armor.

No dust.

Just shards of glass and a few messy footprints sheltered from the snow by the broad side of the house and a few boxes of junk that had kept the wind away.

He stooped down to look at the footprints. There wasn’t much to go on, but he could recognize his brother's footprints. Here and there the prints overlapped on top of an unfamiliar set pressed far deeper into the snow. The human’s no doubt.

So she had been the one in the lead then. She had been the first outside and Papyrus had gone after her.

He began to follow the tracks off into the trees. Ok. This was ok. He could still work with this.

Slowly his mind began to piece things together a little. “you were running from it, weren’t you?” He murmured, recalling the fear in the human’s eyes as she had spoken of the darkness inside of her. If anything it added a little credibility to her wild claims- sort of. He wasn’t writing down his faith in ink any time soon but at least this meant she really was more focused on getting away than fighting this time.

He pulled out his phone and called his brother.

One ring.

Two.

…Three.

Papyrus always answered by the second ring. No acceptations. This was not encouraging.

It kept ringing and went to voicemail. The recording was a long, loud explanation about how he must be busy training and a requested that the caller leave a message so they could hang out later. Sans had never actually heard this messaged before. This was the first time Papyrus had ever failed to answer the phone.

He waited for the beep so he could leave his message. “hey, it’s me. where are you? i’m worried… you’re not trying to follow her, are you? please, call me back.” That last bit sounded a little more uneven then he had wanted it to. He shoved his phone back in his pocket and took a deep breath.

No dust. He had to keep reminding himself of that. Not dust. _Yet_.

He rubbed at his eye sockets and groaned. He had to get back to Hotland and let Alphys know their plans had been changed. Maybe he could find Papyrus on one of her cameras while he was there.

It looked like this was going to be another sleepless night.

***

Rain had gotten used to a great many things that she had not been aware of getting used to. The feeling of always being somewhat cold, the smell of her own singed clothes, the feel of dust and pollen packed under her nails. She had gotten used to the taste of her own blood and the feeling of dirt stuck between her teeth, because once you got to Waterfall you had nothing but raw water sausages to eat until you reached MTT resort. She had even gotten used to the numbness that had made all of these things little more than vague nagging sensations residing in the caboose of her train of thought.

But things were quite a bit different now. This run was different. And those differences weighed down upon her like tiny stones piled up into a crushing weight of responsibility and cluelessness.

She was winging it.

It felt strange not to have the cold weight of solid metal always pressed against her hand. Chara had picked up quite a number of improvised weapons along the way but Rain always managed to drop them, so long as she was patient and sneaky. More than once she found herself reaching back to pull up the hood on her stolen cloak only to remember she had discarded it in this timeline.

She had to take frequent breaks now. Having a body was so much more exhausting and the pain of injury far more sharp than she remembered.

However, the strangest new sensation by far was the feeling of new clothes. Warm and soft, the faint scent of fabric softener still present in its bright threads. Their fresh cleanliness made the rest of her feel dirty.

They also made her feel like she had a bright neon spotlight on her back at all times. Papyrus’s taste in clothing was far flung from her own. It made it twice as hard to hide as it needed to be.

Lucky for her she was quite skilled at avoidance by now. She probably knew these caverns better than half the monsters that lived here. She knew all the shortcuts, secret tunnels, lesser known pathways and precarious routes that most people would want to avoid for their own safety.

She traversed them all. A shadow in the dark- a slightly neon shadow, unfortunately- but a super sneaky one!

Once again she lost track of time. Though to be honest she had stopped trying to keep track of it long agao. There was no sun to speak of and resets shot everything to hell. Not to mention monsters seemed to have adjusted to much longer “daytime” periods of activity down here.

If time had traveled in a straight line, then perhaps it could be said that she had been in Waterfall for about two days. Of course phantom time could be added to that number for every accidental encounter she had where Chara had fought against her, stretching those two days into something far more grueling.

Chara wasn’t like a dog with a bone. She was like a vampire starving for blood. Her attempts at murder were becoming more frenzied. More desperate. Yet as time went on it became a little easier for Rain to hold her back. The longer she had control over her own body the more time she had to practice calm control and careful thought. So long as she kept a level head it was harder for Chara to steal the reigns.

Of course she could also steal control while she was sleeping.

...Rain had not slept in at least two days.

For now that strategy was working but it was only postponing the inevitable trouble. If she didn’t come up with a new tactic soon she would be too worn out to fight Chara or deal with Undyne and then the two of them would be at each other’s throats while she recovered.

_“She won’t show you any mercy you know. Undyne only has two settings: stubborn and dead.”_

“I will find a way around her.”

_“What, do you think she will forgive you as easily as Papyrus did? She was a pain in the ass to start with. If she can remember even the faintest scrap of memory from all those other timelines we burned, she will turn you into a personalized pin cushion and throw your corpse into the magma once she’s bored.”_

“Then I just won’t give her that chance.” She shifted her weight and tested her footing. There was a pretty large gap where a bridge had gone out- possibly due to Undyne trying to force her to take a different path. She had been hunting them for a while now but she had become predictable in her tactics so while it may not be easy, avoiding her was in fact possible.

With a running jump Rain flung herself across the gap. The wind was knocked out of her and she cracked her knee against a rock but she limped on, plucking sausages from the reeds and healing as she went.

_“How do you plan to get past her?”_

They were climbing up a rather sketchy looking wall now. There was a small tunnel about twenty feet up. Not quite tall enough to stand upright in but that was fine. She would crawl.

“You’ll find out.”

_“Whatever you do it won’t work. And once you get to Hotland she will corner you. The guards will be much more organized with her alive to give them orders.”_

“I will figure it out. I got all the time in the world, remember?” Well, so long as time didn’t shatter, she did. It seemed to be holding up ok now that they were not spamming true resets but it still wasn’t looking friendly in the void. Lately she felt like she had spent too much time staring into that thing and it was starting to stare back.

_“Hah! Who do you think you are? Some sort of pacifist? Do you think this will make up for all the things we have done? Do you think they will forgive you just because this time the mask you wear is a smile?”_

“No.” She grunted, dragging herself up into the tunnel. An echo flower that had sprouted from a tuft of grass near the entrance echoed back her negative. “But it would be a start.” She yanked it from the ground. It gave a shrill and feeble sort of cry that made her hair stand on end. “It would give them a chance to move on. Even if I will be stuck like this forever.” She held the flower close to her lips and whispered. “Test, Test. One, two, three.”

“Test, Test. One, two, three.” It echoed back.

Good.

“Rain? Hello?”

She froze in place for a second, crouching low to the tunnel floor. Chara perked up at the sound of Papyrus’s voice.

“Not again.” Rain sighed through her teeth.

“Not again.” The flower echoed.

Papyrus had not given up his search. They had lost him in the trees near the borders of Snowdin but he had followed their tracks into Waterfall before the snow could fill them in. She had been trying to permanently shake him ever since.

She had left him several messages via echo flower by now, coming up with a dozen different ways to try to get him to go home. Yet he was nothing if not persistent.

He didn’t know it but he had had a brush with death while searching for them in the reeds this morning. More than a just a brush, actually. But she had fixed that.

She felt words bubbling up in her throat as Chara tried to call out their position. Rain picked up a nearby rock and put it in her mouth, its cumbersome size pinning down her tongue and keeping the words from being much more than a few sloppy grumbles. She clenched the stem of the flower between her teeth and began to crawl away.

The tunnel felt crowded. She felt like there were eyes burning holes in her back. Despite knowing full well she had successfully avoided all of the Royal Scientist’s cameras thus far and that she wasn’t scheduled to have another run-in with Undyne until she came out of the tunnel, she still found herself looking over her shoulder and checking the cracks in the walls to make sure she was still alone.

_Dark, darker, then even darker. Falling through the cracks. Into holes, into tunnels, into static. Brushing up against the past and causing her soul to bleed. There was a face in the walls. It was watching her._

Maybe it was just paranoia over Papyrus finding her when she could only crawl that made her feel so uneasy. Maybe it was because the echo flower kept echoing back distorted versions of her own breathing as it died. Maybe this tunnel was just fucking creepy.

Or maybe she really was being watched.

_A sigh. Wind through leaves. Distant static coming from an unseen radio. But there were none of those things here in the void. Was it a whisper then? What did it want?_

_The bleeding stopped when she regained a body but the scars remained._

Yep. It was just the echo flower freaking her out. Best to stop thinking about the void. But just to be safe, she leaned away from any sketchy looking gaps in the wall.

_“You know I bet they know Papyrus is missing. Maybe they think you killed him again! Technically you did.”_

_“That was you.”_ Rain thought, choosing to keep quiet in the tunnel. _  
_

_“Was it?”_ Chara lounged around like a smug cat, her presence draping itself over Rain like a scarf. _“We have been together for quite a while now. I may not have been able to fully absorb your soul, but you did give it to me. Your body too. I used your body to kill. I use your Determination to live. And despite what you may like to tell yourself, we both know you used me too. You used what’s left of my soul to do the things you were too afraid to do. So why nitpick the black and white _now _? You used to be so eager to live in the gray.”_

_“Yeah and then that gray got really, really bloody cause I fucked up! I may have helped to kill in the past. Sometimes I let you kill because It was the most passive choice I could make. But I’m done with that. That last kill was just you being, well,_ you _. You killed him on your own and I brought him back on_ my _own.”_ And boy had that been like pulling teeth. It had also added at least two more phantom days to their two “true” day’s journey. _“ So don’t bother trying to guilt trip me. I know what I did.”_

She could hear the sound of rushing water now. It began to drip from the ceiling and soak through the knees of her pants as it pooled along the floor. She was getting close to the exit. She picked up the pace. She needed the flower to be in good shape when she got out.

_“Anyway, as I was saying, do you think they think you killed him again? I mean, Undyne will hunt you down like a fox either way- but Sans could be interesting. Because now he knows exactly what you are and what you have a habit of doing. What will you do if he turns on you? What will you do if you end up fighting both him_ and _Undyne?”_ Chara chuckled to herself. _“Even I won’t be able to help you then! It would be worse than fighting both her and Papyrus.”_

Rain tried to ignore the bitter taste in her mouth. Maybe Chara had been hoping to take care of Papyrus out here in hopes of pushing Sans past the point of mercy again. Then Rain would either have to dive back into the void and start all over, or compromise and kill a few monsters in order to progress.

In a brief flicker of worry she realized she was not sure what option would be the best. Was it justified to risk the safety of everyone to save the few?

She shook the thought from her mind. She wouldn’t let it come to that.

Finally she came out of the tunnel. It was an awkward last few yards. There was enough of a slope to cause a thin stream of water to run down the tunnel’s belly. The water was cold and the floor was slick with slime. When she slid back out into the open she made an ungraceful belly flop into a small running river just deep enough to carry her downstream a few feet before she paddled over to the other side and wrung her clothes out.

Hah! She had made it. Let’s see Papyrus catch up to her now!

She scurried up against the thick reeds and began to traverse the water’s edge, careful to stay as far away from the wild echo flowers as possible.

She tried to calculate what day it was for the rest of the Underground. She had seen most of these days quite a few times by now so she had a rough idea of where Undyne was likely to try and catch her today. Of course this run broke so far from tradition that she couldn’t lean too heavily on that pattern anymore.

She did know her patrol route though. So that was something. And so far she probably hadn’t killed anything in Waterfall… yet. At least she hoped she hadn’t killed anything. She had gotten into a few fights and ran off without ever knowing if the monsters she encountered were ok. She just had to hope they were and that Undyne would notice that she was trying to show mercy. She didn’t put much stock in that hope though. That’s why she was so mindful of the flowers.

Speaking of which, there was quite a large field of them coming up soon.

She peeked over a nearby ledge. Down below several flowers swayed along in a gentle wind; a small stream cutting through their ranks. She held the flower to her lips. “Testing. Testing. One, two, three.”

“Testing. Tes…ing. One..oo.. tree.”

Good enough.

“That angry piece of sushi couldn’t catch me if I showed up at her front door and gave her a net!”

“That angry pie…shi couldn’t catch me if…. showed up….. and gave her a net!”

Eh, still good enough. She tossed it over the ledge and down into the gentle rolling water below. The flower bobbed down the lane, passing by its counterparts and whispering its message as it went. Soon the whole field was whispering about her, the message becoming garbled in one area just as a patch somewhere farther downstream caught on to the fresh message and saved its voice from the static.

Somewhere down below on the far side of the clearing, the clang of metal footsteps could be heard echoing against the cavern.

Rain smiled and ran the other way.

***

Her luck was bound to run out eventually. She should have known this would happen and couldn’t help but be angry with herself when it did. All that careful planning and she still ended up stuck right where she always ended up: staring down a gauntlet with a pissed fish waiting at the end of it.

She had avoided everyone so well up until now! She had been so sneaky! She had really thought she could pull this off. But there were two things she had not quite accounted for.

One: Just like Papyrus, Undyne knew she could catch her in a bottleneck if she waited long enough.

Two: The water down here was really, _really_ cold.

Her original plan had been to bribe the ferry boat to carry her downstream to Hotland. She knew the docking stations well enough. She may or may not have broken into someone’s house to acquire said bribe, but she didn’t have to kill anyone to get it.

She had just kind of assumed that if she waited around long enough the ferry would show up. But without evacuating monsters to carry back and forth, the ferry didn’t seem to have a reason to show up today.

Maybe Undyne had something to do with that. She didn’t know.

Plan B was to ride the current bareback. She had become quite the good swimmer down here but the runoff from Snowdin coupled with the lack of sunlight made the water icy cold. The current was swift, the water was deep and the sides of the tunnel the river ran through were smooth and slick from so many years of erosion. She did not last long enough to make it to Hotland.

Lastly she tried to beat Undyne to the punch and sneak through the bottleneck before the intimidating Captain could arrive but Undyne was not one to easily be beat at anything. She was already there waiting for her when she arrived.

So now her only choice was to go through Undyne’s ledge. She had to brave the mock-mountain within the mountain and face its angry guardian.

_So, here we are. Doesn’t this all just look a little too familiar?”_ Chara teased. _“You thought you were being so clever, didn’t you?”_

Rain’s answer was cut off when Undyne’s grim voice cut through the howling air.

“Seven. Seven human souls and king Asgore will become a god.” High above them, on a perch illuminated by the smoldering light of Hotland, Undyne turned to face them. “Six. That’s how many we have collected thus far. Understand? Through your seventh and final soul, this world will be transformed.”

Rain cleared her throat. Her hands reached to grasp something to help comfort her but there was nothing there to hold. No weapon. Nothing to use in her defense. She had chosen to throw it all away. “We don’t have to do this you know. We don’t have to fight. I don’t _want_ to fight.”

“Hah! You sure as hell wanted to fight all those monsters that got in your way!” She spat, glaring down at her and twisting her hands over the shaft of a glowing spear that accumulated in her hand. The leather of her gloves creaked in response. She watched them with a single angry, yellow eye.

“But they are all ok, right? No one died.” Rain protested.

“No thanks to you! Do you think it’s been fun for me? Searching for the people you left for dead? Following trails of dust and magic across my home so I can find the friends who crawled away from your little encounters? Did you think this was all just a game? It’s not _fun_ promising to keep the people you care about safe, only to find them wounded and dying later because you couldn’t do your damn job!”

Rain flinched away from her growling words.

_“Doesn’t sound like she’s in a very merciful mood. Are you sure you don’t want a little help?”_

“I don’t want to hurt any more people, Undyne. I don’t want to fight you.”

“Hah! You just don’t want to pick on someone who can actually stand up to you! Why else would you have spent the past two days crawling around with your belly in the mud? You have been running from me!” She pulled off her helmet, hair dancing in the wind. A look of disappointment fell across her face. “I used to think humans were cool, you know. Alphys’s history books told me that people like you could be compassionate, just like us. But you? You are just a remorseless criminal.” She looked off in the direction they had come from and sighed. “I know what you did. I can’t find him… but I know.”

Rain shifted uncomfortably. “Know what?”

She flashed her teeth in a hateful sneer. “I know that you killed him! You killed my _friend_!” Her voice broke ever so slightly and she tossed her helmet away with an angry crash. “Say what you want about him. Call him naïve, weird, self-absorbed- but Papyrus always answers his phone in the first two rings!” She held up two fingers and shook them at her. “Then you come along, pass right through his town and all of a sudden he won’t answer anymore. He didn’t show up to give his report either. I stood there waiting for him for hours and he never came! He’s just… gone. And his brother isn’t around either.”

Rain took a step back. This was too much like before. This was too close to how she has lost it all the first time. “N-no. Undyne you don’t understand. He’s fine. I swear! He’s still alive! He’s out there somewhere, I saw him just a few hours ago and-”

“What did you do to him? _What did you do to him!_ ” She threw her spear. It hummed as it embedded itself in the ground at Rain's feet. Undyne closed her eye and composed herself. “Forget it. You don’t really care. Go ahead. Prepare however you want. But when you step forward,” a second spear formed in her hand. “I _will_ kill you. I may have failed him but I’ll be damned if I let you hurt anyone else.”

Chara began to whisper little doubts into her ear. _“You are going to have to kill the king anyway if you want to get out of here. Do you think she would stand by and let that happen? Do you think you can defeat him without any LOVE? Come on, you have proven your point. You want more control. I get it. You have been heard. Now let’s find an appropriate compromise and get out of this hellish place.”_

“I would have been a lot more open to that offer if your compromise wasn’t murder.” Rain chuckled, dark and grim. She was watching the path she had come from. Papyrus had been on her tail ever since she left his house. He was crazy fast and way more observant than she had originally given him credit for. Usually if she stayed in one place long enough he would catch up to her.

“Are you even listening to me punk?” Undyne snapped, patience wearing thin.

“Ca-calm down, ok?” She called up the mountain. “I’m sure if we wait long enough you will see that I’m telling the truth. Any minute now Papyrus will round that corner and sort things out.”

“Quit mocking me!”

“I’m not!”

“Bah! Fine then! I gave you a chance to start this on your own terms but I’m tired of waiting. So now we finish this on _mine_!” Undyne came crashing down the mountain like a rock slide, fangs bared and a pack of spears trailing behind her like eager hunting dogs. “Nnnygah!”

_“Here we go!”_

“Oh geez.” Rain snatched the tribute spear from the ground, eyes widening in surprise at just how fast Undyne was able to close the distance between them. In hardly a blink of an eye she hit the ground, feet sinking into the earth and armor clanging like a gong of war, initiating the fight.

“ _En guarde_!” She swung at her, the blow low and vicious.

Rain rolled out of the way, the spear’s teeth whistling over her back as she moved out of range just as a second spear came crashing down mere inches from her last location. She dropped into a crouching position; spear in hand and at the ready. It was far longer and lighter than the weapon she was used to but its warmth was familiar enough.

She knocked a third spear out of the way when it came flying at her face. It rang like metal and crackled like fireworks before dissipating into static.

In the time it had taken her to move away and deflect the attack, Undyne had taken several steps towards her, flinging spears with one hand while the other let her weapon drag across the ground, its teeth cutting into the earth. Rain noticed the completion of the box far too late to escape it.

Undyne cast her hand in front of her in a wide arc, a spray of glowing green needles casting eerie shadows under her single wild eye and yellowed teeth.

Rain tried to shield herself from the spray with the spear but felt the strange sting of their prick anyway. The world around her throbbed once, her soul being ripped from its hidden place and accumulating into a heart shaped light in front of her chest. She had but a brief moment to notice the growing consistence of light red outshining the dark red before everything was enveloped by green.

“Goddammit.”

“It’s time you stopped running from your crimes and faced justice head on.” Undyne jumped past the line in the dirt, wasting no time in taking a jab at her.

“At least let me get my footing before jumping in here!” Rain yelped, bending over backwards to avoid a stray arrow of light and wobbling in a moment of imbalance when she did.

Undyne saw her moment of vulnerability and swept her feet out from under her, several spears stabbing down at her from up above and forcing her to roll back and forth to avoid them.

“Hah! You know, when I first got reports of your presence I planned on this being a fair fight. But now? After what you have done? I don’t care!”

Rain scrambled to her feet. She screamed in pain when a blow cut across her side, tearing a hole in her clothes.

“You're not just bad, you're cruel. You're _sick_!”

Knee-level spears shot out from the nearby reeds. Rain sidestepped two and jumped over a third, spinning her spear around just in time to block another hail of glowing bullets Undyne had sent raining down upon her head.

Once again Undyne’s voice broke into something shaken by grief. “And you think you can just _lie_ to me? You are wearing his clothes for god's sake!”

Rain mentally cursed herself. She had forgotten about that little detail. That probably looked pretty condemning, didn’t it?

They were face to face again, exchanging blows in rapid succession. Rain blocked them one after another, remembering her patterns from previous lives but still losing ground to her ferocity. She tried desperately to force out an explanation between strikes. “He! Lent! Them! To! m-ugk!” Undyne kicked her in the gut and with a brutal cutting motion from her hand, sent another wave of blue in her direction. A spear lodged itself against her hip bone and caused her to crumble in pain, nearly dropping her spear as she screamed.

She needed to heal.

She felt Chara’s smile against her soul like a warm, oozing cut spreading across her chest. In that brief moment where Rain turned her attention to healing, the world began to lose its color. Even though she was aware her body had already hit the ground, she continued to feel the odd sensation of falling farther and farther back.

_“My turn!”_

Ignoring the wound, Chara sprang forward with her trademark grin of madness, spear held at the ready.

Undyne’s eye widened in mild surprise at witnessing the human’s first offensive move and brought up her spear, blocking the strike and deflecting it with a spin that she turned into an offensive blow of her own.

Chara snaked around the attempt, allowing her whole body to be spun around when her spear was knocked to the side and using the momentum to come back around for another attempt. Arcing her back and allowing Undyne’s next attack to slide behind her, she lashed out with her own attack, aiming for the head.

Undyne’ head snapped to the side, the teeth of the spear cutting a deep gash across her face that only seemed to help widen her snarl. She stepped back, wiping the dripping magic away with a gloved hand and glaring down at it. “Hah. Not bad. See? I knew you had it in you.” She growled.

Chara wasted no time exchanging needless banter, making another lunge instead. But Undyne was falling back on a defensive play, choosing this moment to better judge her opponents capabilities before going toe to toe again. “But now let’s see how you do against this!” With both hands raised like a conductor commanding a symphony, Undyne called upon the next storm of ever-glowing hell.

Chara darted from side to side, trying to inch closer and closer to Undyne while the warrior’s concentration was on manipulating the school of glowing spears streaking across the sparing ground. The patterns were all too familiar by now and Chara blocked every blow with minimal effort.

They clashed once more, Undyne deflecting her attack and knocking her away.

Chara darted back a few steps then darted forward again, ducking under Undyne’s attack, eyes trained on her target. Undyne was oh-so predictable and so much less demanding when compared to Sans. Chara had no problem anticipating the brief opening to Undyne’s left thigh and spun her spear around to go in for the hit.

Rain rose up with a vengeance. She had used Chara as her autopilot while she had healed their wounds and now that they had been closed she was hellbent on regaining control.

Chara let out a frustrated growl as her attack faltered..

_“Not this time. This time I’m the one in control and-_ I choose to show mercy!” Rain pulled the attack into a feint and darted several steps back to reopen the gap between them.

“Mercy? Ha! I still can’t believe _you_ want to spare _me_!” With another flick of her hand a spray of arrows came racing towards Rain from several different directions, their whistling teeth carried forth on the howling wind.

Left, right, left, front, back, right. One after another she knocked the blows away with a spin of her weapon, hissing in pain only when Chara's harassment caused her to falter in her rotation.

A single spear hit her in the back, biting deep into her skin but not going far enough to stick. She felt the warm blood run down her spine and soak into her shirt.

It frustrated her. Chara writhed with excitement at this but Rain forced herself to remain calm, condensing the frustration down into Determination instead.

“You are pretty good.” Undyne commended through a dripping grin, flicking more spears at her then dancing forward and jabbing at her herself. “Most people would be dead by now.”

“Well I’m not most people.” She panted, weaving back and forth, hissing when another strike grazed her ribs.

The pain disrupted her concentration and before she could do anything to stop her, Chara stole her hands for a brief moment and struck Undyne in the shoulder. Luckily she missed the joint in her armor and only managed to scratch the plating.

“Well I don’t care! So stop being so damn resilient!” Undyne lunged forward, risking over extending herself in order to knock away Rain’s spear and go in for killing blow.

Rain gasped, her body tensing in reflex as the spear stabbed deep into her gut, aqua colored teeth rending flesh on the way back out.

She crumbled in on herself, blood gushing between her fingertips, the grip on her spear nearly lost in the trauma. Her only saving grace was that Chara’s enthusiasm to snap at Undyne while she remained over extended has kept Undyne from delivering a proper killing blow.

Undyne danced back a few steps when Rain’s rouge arm kept on attacking while the rest of her remained doubled over in pain.

Heal. She had to heal! Dammit it cost so much more energy to do this when she was the one splitting her concentration between mending and movement! Chara seemed content to let them bleed out if Rain didn’t agree to fight and wasn’t lending any help.

Their soul trembled and the neon green of Undyne’s holding magic began to dissipate. Rain looked up with wild eyes, staring first at the line in the dirt and then at Undyne, who was once again closing in on them.

She threw herself over that line, wincing in anticipation for the wall of yielding magic that never came. She was free!

“Hey!” Undyne shouted, throwing another spear at their heals as Rain staggered off, doubled over and limping at first but gaining more speed as her wound began to heal one painful stitch at a time. “What the hell are humans made of?” Undyne growled, charging off after them.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” Rain slowly began to regain a proper upright position, the pain in her abdomen easing a little.  She risked a glance behind her and nearly got a spear to the face for her trouble. “Oh fuck! Oh fuck!”

_“Gotta go fast.”_

A spear hit her in the leg. She fell head over heels and landed with her face in the dirt.

“Hah!” Undyne barked, armor sounding like thunder as she closed in on them once more. “Alphys told me humans were Determined. I see now what she meant by that.”

Rain screamed when she pulled the spear from her leg. Her breathing was becoming ragged with exhaustion.

“But I’m Determined too.” Undyne raised her weapon. “Determined to end this right now.”

Rain felt light headed, her mind swimming as the pain threatened to overpower her. She struggled to heal herself. She was running out of energy to do this on her own.

One after another spears stabbed down at her like the teeth of a closing maw. Unable to get back up, she rolled from side to side. She was only alive because of her familiarity with the pattern.

_“I could help you if you would just **let me kill her**!” _ Chara snarled, chomping at the bit.

 “No!”

Growing impatient with her attack, Undyne let out a frustrated snarl and launched herself at Rain, stabbing down with her personal spear. “I said: _Right now_!”  The spear dug into Rain’s shirt and scraped down her spine as she twisted away. Thanks to her oversized clothes Undyne misjudged her target by a hair.

Rain swung her good leg forward to try and sweep Undyne’s feet out from under her. Her kick was pathetic in comparison to who she was attacking but it did cause Undyne to jerk back in a defensive stance.

“I. Will. Show. Mercy!” She declared again, forcing her arm down when it tried to stab at Undyne’s knees. She used the momentum from Chara’s attack to knock Undyne’s spear out of her hand instead; an action that seemed to truly take the warrior by surprise.

Rain pushed herself back up to her feet, forcing herself to run while her body screamed in objection.

In the blink of an eye Undyne had another spear at the ready, allowing the old one to dissipate before it ever hit the ground. “I will never take mercy from the likes of you!” She bellowed back.

They were running again. Rain couldn’t heal her wounds. Chara was holding them for ransom, trying to fight off the healing energy like Rain had done in the Judgment Hall. She wanted Undyne to corner her and wear her down to her way of thinking.

_“ **Just let her die. Kindness will never be worth enduring this pain.”**_

“No! No more violence! I’m done hurting people! I will spare them. I will protect them from you!”

The air was getting hotter. The dry howl of the wind warmed her cheeks as they lurched down the tunnels, building speed as they went.

“You! Will! Never! Spare me!” Undyne screamed, throwing spears into the ground with every word. Rain dogged them on a stroke of luck but was brought up short when she spotted something yellow approaching up ahead.

“Oh no.” She groaned, clutching her spear close. She hated these.

At the last second, when the yellow spear was mere inches from her face, it swerved around and came at her from the opposite direction

Rain smacked it out of the way, having to stop and deflect two more yellow attacks before it was safe for her to run off once more.

Chara was putting extra resistance on their feet now, causing them to drag. They could hear the clank of Undyne’s armor as she raced after them, getting closer.  She was practically hyperventilating with rage.

_“She will not offer you mercy. But I will. You can’t reason with her but_ I _will listen. Just a little violence, Rain. Just a few tiny EXP. That’s all I ask. Let’s compromise! Let’s us feel LOVE again! It will hurt so much less once we have it!”_

The pain in her legs was like fire. It felt like it was slowly eating its way farther and farther up her body with each step. She longed for the numbing relief that Chara’s LOVE could bring.

 But it wasn’t worth it.

_“Fine.”_ She spat. _“Let’s see how many resets you can inflict upon yourself before you change your mind.”_

When a second wave of yellow attacks came tearing out after them, Chara made sure to give her as much misinformation as she could to confuse her. Rain spun her weapon around to block them but one of the spears still managed to graze her legs again.

She couldn’t heal any more. Her lungs burned and her body trembled. She was on pure adrenaline now. It was all she could do to keep her mussels from tearing. Thick trails of blood ran down her legs and stained her shoes.

They tore into Hotland and its dizzying heat. It was a miracle Undyne had not caught up to them again.

Their eyes darted off to the side, noticing a sentry station up ahead. There was a small blue and white shape sitting at the post. Her heart leapt, hope causing her exposed soul to flutter.

“Sans!” She cried, throat dry. “Sans! Help!” She waved her spear overhead. “Tell her to stop!”

“Hold still you little brat!” They were almost to the sentry station when Undyne finally caught up to them. She seemed to have begun to slow down as well but of the two of them she was still in better shape. She flung herself forward and tackled them.

Rains tried to scream but it came out as a breathless grunt as the wind was knocked out of her, Undyne’s crushing weigh shoving her into the hot gravel.

“Sans! Help!” She croaked.

“Sans! I found the human! Help me hold her down!” Undyne ordered.

They grappled for a brief moment before Undyne pinned her down with a knee pressed against her shoulder blades.

“Dammit, Sans!” Undyne spat between heavy rasping pants, apparently having discovered something infuriating. She shoved Rain’s head against the ground. “Hold still you little twerp.”

Rain reached for a handful of dirt and gravel.

Chara reached for the discarded spear.

“Oh no you don’t.” Undyne leaned off to one side to kick the spear farther away, easing up the pressure on their back. Rain twisted around like an eel and flung the dirt at her face.

Undyne cursed, hand going up to her good eye.

Rain wormed her way out of her grasp, allowing Chara a moment of freedom in which she took up the spear and jammed it into Undyne’s leg before the two of them managed to limp off amidst Undyne’s screams of pain and fury.

Despite not having achieved a killing blow, Chara seemed rather smug about her accomplishment. " _Hah. She took an arrow to the knee.”_

Rain rolled her eyes, apparently missing out on somthing.  Eh, Undyne would live.

Rain Hobbled away at maximum speed- which was starting to look pretty pathetic at this point. She heard a rather loud racket of armor scraping against gravel but did not dare to look back until she had crossed the nearest bridge and had nearly limped out of sight of the sentry station. When the sounds of pursuit did not follow after her and Undyne’s bellows of rage fell silent, she finally stopped to see if her attacker had given up.

Undyne hadn’t moved from where she had tackled them. She was lying on her side, hand resting against the wound in her leg as the spear winked out of existence. Rain felt her heart twist.

She didn’t seem like she was going to be getting back up any time soon.


	36. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunion  
> ~~~~~~~~~~  
> Rain meets up with everyone she has been running from all at once and feels awkward.

She watched her for what probably amounted to several minutes. She fidgeted uncomfortably, legs still screaming and knees feeling weak. She kept shifting her weight from side to side to try and ease the pain. At least the heat was helping to dry up some of the blood.

Undyne still wasn’t moving.

“Um, hello? Undyne?” She called, cupping her hands around her mouth to yell over the rumble of the magma below. “Are you ok?”

Nothing.

“If you can hear me, curse twice!”

Still nothing.

“Or twitch. Or move or. Do anything at all so I know you’re not dead?”

_“So, what are you going to do? Maybe you should get a little bit closer so I can see just how weak she is. That would be fun.”_ Rain chewed her lip and made a troubled grumbling sound. _“You know, this is technically a compromise. One in your favor. You leave her to die like this and no one can say you didn’t try. She won’t be able to come after you later and I can’t absorb her power. But I still get the heartwarming satisfaction of knowing you willingly let someone die. No optimistic ‘maybe she will be ok’ to cling to here. Look at her. That’s going to be some grade-A grilled tuna in a little while.”_

Rain’s eye twitched and she pinched the bridge of her nose. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” She inched her way back to the bridge, seeming to permanently lean back on her heels in preparation to run at the slightest movement. “Hey, I’m coming over. Just letting you know in advance. So you can, you know, not stab me.” Why the hell wasn’t Sans helping her? She could have sworn she had seen someone at that sentry station.

A few tense yards of travel later and she got her answer. “Oh for god’s sake.” She growled. Her attempts to find help were greeted by a white pillow with a blue pillowcase and a somewhat Sans-ish looking sleep face drawn onto it with a black sharpie. Propped up against it was a sign that read “out to lunch” in a messy scrawl.

_“Wow. Even fake Sans sleeps on the job.”_

Rain picked up the sign and glared at it. On the other side was a list of prices for hotdogs with various toppings. She couldn’t help but feel bitter about his negligence.

“Nygah!” 

Rain jumped back with an alarmed yelp when Undyne regained some level of animation and managed to throw another spear at them. It sank into the ground mere inches from their toes.

Undyne coughed, her whole body shaking before her raised hand fell back down to her side with a metallic rattle. “Hah. Come to finish the job huh? Only brave enough to strike at me when I’m already down? Figures.” Undyne spat, looking up at them with one yellow eye and panting through her teeth. “You disgust me.” She groaned and tried to get up but didn’t have the strength.

Rain cursed under her breath. Dammit. She really wasn’t ok. But she was still the kind of person who would bite the hand that fed her if she tried to help. Damn woman didn’t know when to give up.

_“Hm. Now who else do I know like that?”_ Chara sneered, rising up like rolling smoke.

Rain inched forward a few steps, stomach doing a nervous flip while she braced herself for what she knew was coming. “Go on then. Do it. Try me. I can still fight1” Undyne declared, her words little more than a rasp. Her fist opened and closed around a ball of blue sparks that refused to turn into anything. Her eyes were glazing and starting to close.

_“Go on then. Try it. Let’s see if you can beat me again.”_

Her hands were trembling. There was a deep itch under her skin and her fingers twitched and spasmed beyond her control. Her body was leaning over to pick up the discarded spear. “If you hurt her I will just reset and try again.” Rain warned, voice cracking as her legs swung forward, Chara boiling up to the surface like smoke and oil, rolling up from a deep ocean abyss.

Their voice contorted as Chara ebbed in and out of control. “ _Oh is that what you think?-_ I’d be ok with- _that.-_ You would only be prolonging your own pain- _by resetting.  She will never back down.-_ Bringing her here- _is your only bet. Letting her collapse.-_ Letting her **die**. In the end the choice will always lead back to this. _How else do you expect to get the power needed to defeat Asgore, anyway?_ ”

Rain tried to let go of the weapon, feet dragging across the gravel and thick beads of salty sweat rolling down her face and plastering her hair to her skin. She jerked this way and that, elbows stabbing at the air as she tried to move her arms and drop the weapon but only managed to make an awkward display of lopsided movements in the end. “I will find another way. There has to be another way!”

_“Look at her. Let’s put her out of the misery. It would be such a small price to pay for sunlight.”_

In a moment of panic she realized that Chara had been pooling her energy for the past two days. She was far stronger than she anticipated. This was why Chara had not been healing them. This is what she had been saving her energy for. She felt Chara jump with giddy excitement, pushing Rain’s exhausted existence farther and farther down into the gloom until the world was whitewashed in blue and gray and her whole body felt numb. In an epitome of dread she realized what this really was.

This was their deciding moment. This was Chara’s last chance to overpower her in a single move. Undyne was one of the strongest monsters in the Underground. The first time they had killed her it had given Chara enough power to claim full possession of their body. If Chara killed her then she would become the stronger of the two souls again. If she was able to kill Undyne and save over her death then Rain would either be forced to live with the disadvantage, or force to try for another true reset. Just the thought of starting over pushed her close to madness.

“N-no. No.” She gasped, teeth clenched so hard they creaked. “I will show compassion! I feel compassion!”

**“It’s so much better when you can’t feel anything.”**

 “M-mercy. I will show mercy!”

“ **This is a mercy**!”

Undyne’s eyes rolled up into her head.

Chara drove the spear down, Rain screaming her objection.

The spear disintegrated in their hands as it touched the armor, its magic crackling and becoming fleeing mist between their fingers as Undyne lost consciousness and her magic dispersed. Chara’s bare fists smacked against Undyne’s chest plate. The hollow clang of her feeble fists against the iron made her eyes widened in shock. “No.” Chara murmured, her wild look of victory turning into horror. “No!” She reached for a stone, a sharp piece of armor, anything. _Anything!_

Rain dragged them away, falling backwards into the gravel with a crunch.

They sat frozen in the dirt for a while, arms wrapped around their body as Rain tried to keep herself still. A disbelieving mix of alternating horror and relief washed over her as she realized she had only been spared a repeat of her former hellish timelines on a _fluke_.

Chara’s cries caused her physical pain. She ducked her head and kept her jaw clenched against her rage and frustration. Their sweat stank of fear.

It would pass, she told herself. There was no weapon so it would _have_ to pass. Chara would have to either wear herself out on nothing or pool her energy for later. Rain was getting stronger. Really, she was. In the future things would be better than this. They had to be.

_“No! No I won’t let you do this! You are ruining everything!”_ She cried in frustration, voice sounding oddly childlike for the first time in memory. _“Why do you want to feel these things so badly? They will only hurt us! You have to let go of this world, Rain. I am protecting you! **She needs to die.”**_

“I’m sorry.” Rain whispered to no one in particular, rocking herself back and forth. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough to stop that one. But we got lucky. It will get better from here. I promise. I promise it can get better from here.”

_“ **Just let her die. Let her die here. Let her turn to dust**. It’s already happened so many times. It doesn’t even matter anymore. **Let them go!”**_

Rain took a shaky breath. “That’s not your choice to make. Not anymore.”

 She waited an uncomfortable amount of time for Chara to wear herself out. When the rage started to subside and Rain could trust her body not to rebel against her too much, she pushed herself back up on shaky limbs and looked down at the unconscious monster. Undyne looked no less menacing in this state than she did while chasing them. She was still a massive creature of looming muscle and imposing steel.

Carefully at first, Rain stooped down next to her, pressing the back of her hand against her cheek. She didn’t know the Captain well enough to be sure but her scales seemed off color, they certainly didn’t look right. She felt pretty warm too.

Rain looked back across the bridge. There was a water cooler set up a little ways off. She usually stopped by it on her way through Hotland. She had no idea why the hell someone had stuck the cooler out in the middle of nowhere like that. Then again there was a random lamp sitting out in the middle of Snowdin and a piano chilling in Waterfall so maybe it was just some weird monster thing she didn’t understand. Whatever the reason, the water was kept cool by magic.

Alright. She knew what she had to do.

She ended up dragging the whole damn cooler across the bridge. A scary prospect since it was a narrow crossing that didn’t look particularly sturdy. She freed the whole drum of water from the cooler and started splashing it on Undyne’s face.

She groaned and moved a little but didn’t open her eyes.

“Hey. Wake up. Come on, you need to get out of here.” She felt Chara jolt in sudden excitement before quickly hiding her emotions in fog.

Rain scowled and did a double take of the situation. She was obviously missing something. The gravel was damp with water now, pooling under Undyne in a small puddle where her body protected it from the heat.

“Oh no.” She set the drum aside and took a closer look at the water. It was white and cloudy. When she held her hand over it to create a shadow, the white substance cast a faint light against her palm: monster blood.

“No. No, no, no! Undyne.” She grunted as she worked to roll her onto her back, eyes scanning the dripping joints of her armor for the source of the bleeding. “You can’t die. You are Undyne the Undying. Well, um, I guess you don’t really know that in this timeline, but still. I really don’t want to do this fight again if I can help it.” Her voice shook a little. “…I’m scared of doing it again.”

She knew what Chara would do to her if she did that. She would do the same things Rain had done to her to mess up their fights with Sans. Only unlike Chara, Rain was worried she wouldn’t be able to willingly tolerate the looping world of pain as long as Chara had in order to obtain her victory. Sparing Papyrus had only required Rain to work up enough strength to discard her weapon. Papyrus was never trying to hurt her during that struggle. Fighting Undyne on the other hand was a much more daunting task to  repeat.

Rain’s fears were pushed away when she felt the strange sensation of coming into contact with monster blood. Ah, there! Near the left shoulder. She could see the magic seeping out through the joints. She began to tug at her armor, awkwardly trying to figure out how it all came off.

She didn’t realize she had a visitor until he called out to her.

“Rain! There you are! I have been looking for you all day and- is Undyne sleeping?”

Rain spun around, hair flying out in a fan behind her. Papyrus was jogging up to her, bones rattling softly in the dry heat. For once she was actually relieved to see the quirky skeleton. “Papyrus, thank god. I need your help. Undyne was chasing me and collapsed.”

He put his hands on his hips. “Oh no, not again! She doesn’t handle the heat here very well. I think someone set out a cooler for her nearby so she wouldn’t risk heat stroke but I guess she was too excited about meeting you and forgot to use it.” He glanced at the mutilated cooler and the half empty jug. “And upon further inspection I now realize you already knew about said cooler.” He knelt down next to his friend and scowled, seeing the long cut across her face. “Wait, was she fighting?”

Rain shifted uncomfortably. “Well, yeah. Her opinion of me is somewhat-”

“Murdery?” Papyrus offered with an embarrassed smile. “Yeah. I kind of worried it might be. But do not worry, Human! Once we get her back on her feet I’m sure that with my help the two of you will become the closest of friends!”

Rain waved away the assurances, picking apart the armor with fingers that were not in the mood to cooperate. “Papyrus, this is serious. I think she’s hurt and I’m not sure why. Look, she’s losing a ton of magic.”

His sockets widened. “Oh my god! What happened?”

“I just said I don’t know!” She ran her hands through her hair. “She’s not waking up and I don’t know how to help her.” She tried to pull off her shoulder plates but her fingers kept slipping on nothing while Chara hissed in her ear. If every second counted then Chara was determined to waste as many as possible. “Ugh. Dammit. My hands aren’t working.”

Papyrus pressed his teeth into a thin line; the gaps in his jaw narrowing down as a serious scowl overtook his face. “Let me do it. I help her put this stuff on all the time when we train.” He gently coaxed Rain to the side and knelt in the warm mud, bony fingers flying across the armor, beginning to untie and disassemble everything. Rain felt a bitter prick of jealousy over his motor skills. It must be nice not having to fight your body for every little movement.

“I swear I didn’t hit her there. I mean, yeah her face got cut and she got stabbed in the leg but I don’t think I ever got a body blow down on her. I-I was just trying to get away.”

“I know, Rain. I believe you.” He said softly, gently pulling the armor away.

Rain felt her heart jump and a weight slide off of her conscience. Those words meant more to her than he could ever possibly comprehend. She had started to give up hope on anyone believing her down here.

“Oh! Well that’s concerning.”

“What? What is it?” She peaked over his shoulder. “Oh.”

Undyne had a long, deep gash running down her left side. There were a few smaller ones as well, each one bleeding magic. But it was the one closest to her heart that was the worst. It ended in something that looked less like a cut and more like a deep puncture wound. The edges displayed the puckered, shiny discoloration of a scar; like it was an old wound that had been aggravated and reopened after not healing properly.

“Can you help her?”

“I-I’m not sure. I’m not very good with healing magic.” He pulled off his gloves and pressed his hands against the wound, a look of concentration causing his eyes to burn a dim orange. His friend’s magic stained his hands and fluttered away as flecks of dust as the substance seeped past his joints. “I think I can slow down the bleeding.” He looked around and saw his brother’s sentry station. “Have you seen Sans?”

“No.”

“Why is he never at his station!” He screeched. “Always slacking off when you need him, I swear! Rain, go to the station and check the panel under the desk. There should be a request assistance button. It’s green. Also, find something to write on and leave a note saying we are going to Undyne’s house and to send help to that location. Once you do that, help me get the rest of her armor off. Otherwise she will be too heavy to carry.”

Rain did as she was told, finding the marker used for the hotdog sign and writing down a message before making her way back to Undyne. “Are you sure we should move her?”

“Well, no. But we can’t leave her here in this heat.”

“Her house is kind of far off, isn’t it?” She pulled off Undyne’s boots and began to pick at her leg armor, not exactly sure how to go about it but managing to make some progress regardless.

“Well I know Alphys is closer but I don’t think Undyne will do very well  if we go even deeper into Hotland while she’s like this. Besides, Gerson’s shop is along the way and if he’s there maybe he can help.”

“How’s the bleeding?”

He paused for a second. “Er, still…bleedy?” He wiped the nervous sweat from his face. “I think I slowed it down but for some reason the wound doesn’t want to close.”

Rain glanced down at Sans coat. She had tied it around her waist but hadn’t discarded it this time. “Um, here. Maybe you can use this to stop the bleeding?” She pulled off the sweater he had loaned her. It had a few more holes than before and it was a far cry from clean but it was all they had. She slipped Sans coat on to replace it, keeping it unzipped. Its warmth was uncomfortable but hopefully she wouldn’t have to worry about that for long. if it got too hot she would just go on without it- not like she had much decency left anyways.

They finished pulling off all of Undyne’s armor. It was warm to the touch and the air reeked of fish. They splashed a little more water on her and kept pressure on the wound. Papyrus slung Undyne’s arm over his shoulder and stood up with a grunt. Undyne groaned and her head lolled but she didn’t open her eye.

Rain hurried over to take up her other arm so they could share her weight between them. Papyrus looked down at Rain’s legs and balked, noticing her own injuries for the first time. “Human! You are damaged!”

“Yeah. Guess I am.”

“You require assistance.”  
“Save it. It’s just a flesh wound.” She winked at him, realizing too late the reference probably sailed over his head. “Just make sure Undyne is ok, alright? I will be fine. Looks worse than it is. Promise.”

“…If you say so.” He shifted her weight a little so that Undyne leaned into the shoulder he was using to keep the shirt pressed up against the wound. “Ready?”

Rain nodded, head lowered so he couldn’t see the bags under her eyes. “Here we go.”

***

Undyne ebbed in and out of consciousness fairly often. Sometimes she was active enough to help carry her own weight but most of the time they had to drag her along on their own. She kept mumbling about Papyrus and not being able to save him again. Even when Papyrus assured her this was not the case, she continued to rant on and on about her "dreams." Lamenting about not having done enough to save everyone. She didn’t quite seem to realize he was still there.

She also had plenty of colorful words to describe her opinion of Rain.

Papyrus assured her Undyne couldn’t _possibly_ mean any of those nasty things. It was just the heat getting to her- and she probably _always_ bit people like that! It was just a love bite, see? They were practically friends already!

Rain did little more that grunt her acknowledgment. The sooner this was over the better.

Gerson was not around when they came to his shop. Apparently he was out on a lunch break. Rain grabbed whatever food items were closest and wolfed them down. They were not worth much but they did give her the boost she needed to keep moving. She tried to get Undyne to eat somthing but the attempt was pointless. Luckily they knew enough shortcuts to get to Undyne’s house in a reasonably direct manner and the fish shaped house soon loomed over them, its toothy doorway glinting in the strange bioluminescent light of Waterfall.

This was another house Chara had never had much success getting in to. Mostly because the door kept trying to bite them every time they went near it.

Rain peered into the house when the teeth parted to let them in. She skipped past the threshold a little faster than necessary.

“Her bedroom is over there. Can you get the door?”

She tried the door. “It’s locked.”

“Oh. Don’t worry, I know the secret combination.” Papyrus marched up to the door, Undyne all but slung over his shoulder by this point. Rain's legs kept giving out too often to be much help. Chara kept kicking her in the back of the knees.

Rain cocked an eyebrow. “There is a secret combination?”

“Of course!” He took a deep breath, kept himself balanced, and kicked the door open with a loud “Nnnnyeh!” before nudging the broken door out of the way. “That’s her secret combination for all her doors. She showed me herself!”

…Of course.

They set her down on the bed and did what they could but the wound still didn’t seem to want to heal. If anything it was getting worse, magic seeping through the improvised bandaging and pulsing with an eerie glow in tune to Undyne's heartbeat before turning to dust.

Papyrus decided that he had to risk leaving her so he could go find some proper help since whoever should have answered the sentry’s distress call had never shown up and they didn’t know where Gerson was.

Despite her protests against it, Rain was the one left alone to look after her would-be killer.

She sat down on the side of Undyne’s bed, keeping pressure on the wounds while trying to ignore the burning pain of her own marks. Chara’s bitter ploys made everything here more difficult then it needed to be. It didn’t help that Undyne’s house was decorated with weapons like some sort of insanely metal version of Christmas. Rain kept her elbows tucked up against her ribs and her hands pressed firmly against the puncture wound and well within sight, hyper aware of Chara’s attempts to be sneaky about picking up anything Rain hadn’t kicked out of their immediate reach. She chewed at her lip in a nervous fit as she watched Undyne’s face for any sign that she may come around and begin to wake up.

Rain cleared her dry throat. “Hey… I don’t know if you can hear me but I need you to pull through, alright?” She cast a longing look at the door. She would love to simply crawl outside and collapse in the weeds for a while. She didn’t trust herself alone like this. But she owed it to everyone to at least wait until Papyrus got back. “You have always had a bone to pick with me, so we don’t know each other very well but I know a lot of people look up to you. They need you. The Underground needs someone who can protect them from bad guys like me, because I’m not doing a very good job of doing that on my own.”

Undyne stirred, muttering a list of names again.

“They are fine. They are all fine. The only one in trouble right now is you. So, um, please get better? Come on fish lady, I have seen you take worse hits than this. Hell, I cut you in half a few times and all it ever did was piss you off! So don’t wimp out on me now, alright?” She laughed nervously. She could feel the stress pulling itself into a tight ball inside her chest, sitting there like a cold chunk of lead. “I mean if I have to, I will go back and try again. I haven’t saved yet. In case you don’t…yeah. But it would be better if I didn’t have to because I really, _really_ don’t want to go do that again.” Her voice became a dry, cracked whisper. “I’m scared. I know you swore to protect people who were not strong enough to protect themselves, no matter what the cost. I know you don’t think I’m on your side right now. I know you don’t think I deserve any kindness at this point but… I’m trying. So please, help me out here? I need to know there are still people out there who are stronger than me in case I-“ she choked a little, “in case I fail.”

Undyne’s head lolled and her yellow eye cracked open. She groaned and took a moment to focus in on Rain, who was still leaning over her with a hand on the wound. Rain blinked in surprise when she saw some semblance of lucidity in her expression. Undyne’s lips curled up against her teeth in a disgusted sneer. “Get…the hell…off me.”

“I can’t. I have to keep pressure on the wou-Ow! Shit!” Undyne knocked her away with her forearm, sending her stumbling back into a dirty clothes hamper.

“I don’t know what this is.” She panted, pushing away the sheets as the glow of bleeding magic grew more prominent. “And I don’t care. I don’t need help from someone like _you_. So I’m only going to warn you once:” she pointed a trembling finger at her, “Get the hell out of my house. Because when I get out of this bed I’m going to kick your ass.”

Rain gaped, trying to find the right words amidst her panic. “Undyne, calm down. Look at yourself! You need to let me help- hey, stop that! Stop trying to get up!”

“I still don’t see you running, punk!” She grunted, trying to pull herself into an upright sitting position. The sudden movement caused her head to loll again and she sank back against the headboard, head in her hand as the room spun and she struggled to stay awake.

“Goddammit” Rain hissed.

Her salvation came in the form of Papyrus’s timely return. She heard the front door tsnapp open as he came racing back inside. “I’m back! And I brought help! You will never guess who I found just outside!”

“Papyrus?” Undyne slurred, drooping and losing her grip on consciousness once more.

Rain eased herself back up to her feat. Her calves were throbbing and she was oozing blood again. “Well hurry up and get in here. She’s starting to wake up and she’s pissed!”

“Right this way, your majesty.”

Rain frowned. Had Papyrus just said “your majesty?”

The door creaked open, its splintered frame whining its objection at being moved.

“Oh my.” A soft voice gasped.

Rain’s eyes widened and she found herself pressing her back against the wall, hands fidgeting uncomfortably before she shoved them deep into her pockets to hide them.

Papyrus ushered a tall, sturdy white figure through the damaged door, holding the splintered wood upright so the new arrival could step through. She had to duck her head a little to keep her small horns from brushing against the top of the door frame. Their eyes locked across the room and for a moment they just stared at each other.

Rain had spent a lot of time looking into a lot of angry eyes down here. Flowey, Sans… Undyne. She had caused a lot of pain and accepted that she deserved those looks of hate when she got them. But Toriel did not look angry. She only looked sad. Disappointed.

“Um, h-hey.”

“Hello, my child.”

Chara perked up and echoed Rain’s own disbeliefs. Thick rolls of ashen disgust and embers of bitterness stained their mind. _“She’s alive?”_

“You’re alive?”

Toriel gave her a soft smile that didn’t reach far. The skin and fur around her eyes crinkled a bit, causing a silver scar on her cheek to become all the more prominent. “Yes, it would seem that way.” She turned to observe Undyne, who was slumped against the headboard while Papyrus tried to make her more comfortable. Her eye was closed again.

Papyrus looked between Rain and Toriel with oblivious pride as he eased Undyne back down onto her pillow. “You know Asgore’s clone? Wowie!”

Toriel glided over to the bedside and put a soft hand on Undyne’s forehead, the other hand moving to gently peel back the makeshift bandaging. She hissed between her teeth. “This looks bad. You are lucky I was nearby.”

“How- _why_ are you here?” Rain stuttered.

Toriel kept her eyes locked on Undyne as her hands began to glow green with an inviting light that made the whole room slowly fill with a comfortable feeling. “You scared me when you left.” She explained; tone calm and civil. “You said you needed to prove something. You wish to pass through these lands peacefully and prove that humans can still be good, do you not?”

Rain cleared her throat and looked down at the floor. “Yeah.” It obviously didn’t look like she was going a good job.

“As you can see, there are many you will encounter along your path that will wish to do you harm. You are new to the Underground so I imagine you are not fully aware of the dire situation you have fallen into.” Both Rain and Chara couldn’t help but snort a little at that. Toriel glanced at them from under her eyelashes before turning her attention back to Undyne. “Your arrival means that king Asgore will be able to break free of this prison, should he obtain your soul. With it he would wish to wage war upon humanity and reignite the cycle of death that forced us down here in the first place.

“I understand that you must be frightened of me, but I can no longer afford to hide from the shame of my title within the Ruins when Asgore is so close to obtaining such a volatile power. I must act.” She lowered her voice. “I simply cannot afford not to care anymore.” For a second she no longer seemed to be with them in the present. The memories of past children were playing out just behind her eyes. But she soon pulled herself from that murk and offered another small smile. “Just know that I come here only because I wish to keep you safe, and to let you know that I forgive you for your…outburst.”

Undyne coughed and Toriel’s attention snapped back to her patient with a frown. “This wound is deep and dark. There is something wrong about it.”

Papyrus fidgeted in place, picking at the fabric of his gloves and looking uncertain for the first time. “But you can still fix her, right, your majesty?”

“I think so. Her soul is strong. I have dealt with a wound similar to this recently.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Rain peeped.

“You have done enough. I will call you should we require assistance.” She turned to Papyrus. “Papyrus, was it? Come, take my hand. I may need to draw upon your magic if you will allow it.”

“Of course!”

Rain slid along the walls and slipped out of the room. She made a beeline for the door. Now would be as good a time as any to bail out. Unfortunately she only made it half way across the room before her legs finally gave out and she collapsed into the nearest chair.

Chara squirmed inside of her, hungry eyes surveying the room with a greedy desire to pick up one of the many weapons lying around and start swinging. Papyrus, Toriel, Undyne, they were all here. All her missed opportunities. Papyrus and Toriel were soft. She could take them by surprise. Undyne was bedridden. An easy kill.

Rain didn’t fight her when she took up control of their body. She only laughed at her, watching as Chara struggled to stand. She took a few steps then nearly fell, catching herself on the table and pulling them back into the chair with a curse. “Bet you wish you had been a little more cooperative back when we had enough energy to heal ourselves, huh?”

_“Be quiet.”_

“Bite me.”

A few minutes passed where Rain simply rested her head on the table. She didn’t even realize she had almost fallen asleep until the crack and creak of the broken door alerted her to Papyrus’s presence. She rubbed at her eyes and yawned. “How did it go?”

“Queen Asgore is a very skilled healer.” Papyrus offered an tired smile, moving to the kitchen and going through some of the cupboards. His shoulders seemed to be sagging a bit more than usual. He was starting to look pretty worn out too. “I think she will be ok now. She may even wake up soon and then you two can have a proper introduction. Undyne will probably be really hungry so I am going to make her something to eat for when she wakes up so she can recover faster.”

Rain cocked an eyebrow. “Is it going to be spaghetti?”

He scowled. “Of course it’s going to be spaghetti!” He took out a box of golden flower tea and began to rummage around in the fringe. Rain didn’t bother questioning why a wave of heat hit her face when he opened the _fridge_. “Tea and Spaghetti are good for the soul. That’s why I am the strong, handsome monster than I am today!”

“By eating spaghetti?”

“By cooking it!” He beamed. “Are you hungry too or will you be ok?”

“Yeah.”

Papyrus frowned. “Yeah you are hungry or yeah you will be ok?”

“Mhm.”

“Nyheeh? Okay? Would you like some spaghetti or some tea?”

She waved the notion forward, crooking her fingers in invitation for said things to be brought to her. “Yes.”

For a brief moment it looked like Papyrus was probably screaming on the inside. “…Ok.” His eyes darted from side to side. “You are not making this very easy. So I’m just going to give you everything and let you choose what you want.”

Raid was resting her head on the table and starting off at nothing. “Alright.”

Papyrus continued to chatter as he worked. He was apparently quite flattered to have just learned that Toriel knew about him and his brother. He kept referring to her as “Asgore’s clone,” or “Mrs Asgore,” though.

Rain wondered if Toriel and Sans had met in this timeline. She knew they had talked through the door and he had referenced her from time to time on other runs but the only time he had ever referred to her by name had been when Flowey had brought her out of the Ruins.

Papyrus slid a container or warm spaghetti over to her and she banished the question from her mind. She stuck her fork into the mess of burnt sauce and poorly cooked noodles and chewed methodically.

“I still can’t believe Asgore’s clone knows my name! This is the best day ever! Well, except for what happened to you and Undyne. That was unfortunate. And my brother not being at his station again was rather frustrating. Also Clone Asgore told a horrible skeleton pun while I was in there- but other than that!” He flung his spoon high overhead and splattered the ceiling with marinara sauce.

Despite his attempts at sounding enthusiastic she still caught the hidden note of fear in his voice. He really had been worried about his friend.

The water for the tea began to boil, causing the teapot to whistle. “Oh. Tea’s done.” He poured out two mugs worth of water and gave them a quick stir before sliding one over to her. She was in the middle of gnawing a particularly chewy chunk of noodles into submission when Papyrus let out a loud gasp and she stopped to look up in question. The stars in his eyes were quite literally twinkling. He was trying to cover his blush with a gloved hand.

Blush? He could blush?

“Human! you- I can’t believe- my spaghetti!” He squealed.

Her eyes darted around the room. “What about it?”

“You are eating it! You enjoy my cooking!”

  
She shrugged helplessly. “You have any idea how long I have been eating raw water sausages?”

“Do you- do you want more?”

She crooked a finger at the fridge and resumed her gnawing. She didn’t have the heart to tell him she had a hard time tasting anything anymore. She just needed to restore some health.  But if this helped take his mind off of the near-loss of his friend she would do what she could. “Back up the spaghetti truck. I’m a hungry beast with a thirst for marinara.”

Actually, she wasn’t a big fan of tomatoes. But his cooking was so bad that the nutritional value had been burned away to almost nothing. Low nutritional value, low healing: thus she needed to eat a ton of the stuff if it was to have any positive impact. It seemed to be the only damn thing in the whole house she could eat so she wasn’t going to complain about it. She would just have to eat a lot of it before she could feel better.

For a while that star struck look of joy on Papyrus’s face took her mind off her legs looking and feeling like utter dog meat. And at least she had some tea to help wash down what little she _could_ taste. She was polishing off her second container and agreeing to her third, much to the tear-filled joy of her cook, when there was a knock at the door.

Rain rubbed at her temple. “Great. Let’s just make this a frikkin house party.” She grumbled under her breath. Who else could they cram in here? The king? The Royal Scientist? The gay robot? Why did everyone suddenly decide to show up now that she wasn’t capable of running?

Papyrus went to answer the door with a little more spring in his step than he had had a few moments ago. “San! How nice of you to join us! Why were you not at your station?”

Rain looked over her shoulder just in time to see Sans hug his brother. His eyes were squeezed shut and his smile all but gone. She quickly looked away before she risked making awkward eye contact.

“i have been looking for you all day, Papyrus.” He said with much more emotion that Rain was used to hearing from him. “we didn’t see you on any of the cameras.”

“Oh. Well I suppose I did take a lot of really uncommon routes.” He rubbed at a rather particular spot on his neck. “Sorry.”

“why didn’t you answer your phone?”

“My phone?” He patted himself down, as if he had a number of places he could have kept a phone in that getup. “Oh, I must have dropped it.”

“Well, you did do a backflip out of the window of a two story building. Maybe that’s when you lost it.” Rain muttered around a mouthful of tea. Sans looked at her for the first time since Papyrus had opened the door. She avoided looking at him but out of the corner of her eye she imagined she caught the traces of some sort of dark look that gradually melted into that trademark smile of his.

“Papyrus, can i speak to you outside for a sec?”

“Of course!” They slipped outside and the door snapped shut behind them with the unnerving clack of teeth.

Rain listened to the high notes of Papyrus’s voice rattle through the wall and tried to discern the meaning of Sans’s lower drones but it was hopeless. She finished her tea and shamelessly turned to the mug that had been left out for Undyne, removing the tea bag and dropping it into her empty cup along with the first. This place was getting too crowded for her liking and Sans showing up could only mean that things were about to either get very complicated or cut short altogether. Either option was a good reason to eat up and get going.

Unfortunately a crash from Undyne’s room warned her that she had run out of time to leave without any conflict. They heard Toriel’s objections as the door was knocked aside. “Let go of me!” Undyne snapped, pushing her way through the door and locking eyes with Rain in a heartbeat.

“You.” Her eye narrowed. She managed to look imposing even though a dusty tank top had replaced her armor and she had to brace herself against the door frame to keep steady. “You sure have some nerve showing up here. Sitting at my table, drinking my tea- who do you think you are?”

Chara drew their eyes to a comically over-sized sword propped against one of the other chairs and Rain had to force herself to ignore it.

“How dare you set foot in my house after everything you have done.” Undyne grunted, rolling her shoulder to try and shake off the lingering sting.

“Undyne, I helped carry you here.” Rain tried to keep her voice calm. She gripped her mug a little tighter in frustration and called out to the two skeletons waiting outside. “Hey, Papyrus! Can you two come back in here for a sec? Undyne is up.” She locked eyes with Undyne but remained completely still, wary of what any sudden movement might bring. “No one is dead, ok? Papyrus is fine. I know you were pretty out of it but-”

“Shut up! Don’t you dare speak his name like you knew him!”

From the other side of the door Toriel voiced another objection; clawed hands peeking around the door frame before Undyne yanked the door closed and held it in place. She was soaked in a fevered sweat and was obviously still pretty out of it.

“Undyne, you’re delusional. It’s the heat.”

A blue spear accumulated in her raised hand. “We are going to finish this right here, right now. All out on both sides.” Her voice lacked its usual vigor, there was only a grim sort of finality to it.

Rain sighed and took a long gulp of her stolen tea to stall for time. She couldn’t help but drip sarcasm at this point. “Settle down Prince Zuko. You can find and capture the Avatar and regain your honor later, when we both look less like dog m-”

“Nngah!” Undyne threw her spear, its head biting into the table mere inches from her hand and causing the wood to split right down the middle.

“Dammit Undyne, leave me alone!” She reached for her mug and flung its contents at her as she forced herself to her feet and put the chair between the two of them. She didn’t notice she had picked up the wrong mug until she looked up at Undyne, expecting another attack. She was instead greeted by her stiff, unbelieving demeanor. One teabag was stuck in her hair and the other was peeling itself away from her good eye.

“Did you…just….teabag me?”

Papyrus came crashing through the door at long last. “Undyne? Why are you not in bed? You should be resting!”

Undyne’s head whipped around and her eye widened in confusion and disbelief. Her shoulders sagged and her voice cracked. Her eye glinted with held back tears as she took a moment to understand what she was seeing. “…Papyrus?” She pushed herself away from the wall and wrapped him up in a crushing embrace that made his back pop. She buried her face against his shoulder and said nothing.

“Wow I sure getting hugged a lot today! Nyeheh.” Papyrus gave her a reassuring pat on the back and helped keep her steady. She still wasn’t up to her usual snuff. 

“I’m… glad you’re ok.” She managed gruffly.

Papyrus’s voice became surprisingly gentle as his willful ignorance broke away at last. “Sorry if I worried you, Undyne. Sans told me that you were trying to call me. I didn’t realize I lost my phone. But everything is fine now, alright? Everyone is safe. You don’t have to fight anymore. Here, let’s get you back in bed. I hope you didn’t upset Asgore’s clone.”

She cradled her head in her hand and gave the floor a thousand yard stare. “…Clone?”

“Yes. The human and I saved you, then we met Asgore’s clone!”

Undyne cast a very, _very_ dazed look over her shoulder, eye darting from Sans who had just slipped back inside, to Rain, who was more or less leaning over the back of her chair and hadn’t moved or breathed since Papyrus had walked in.

She pointed an accusing finger at Sans. The sight of him seemed to return some of her angry sanity to her. “You! Why weren’t you at your station? I called for backup and you weren’t there!”

He shrugged, eyes sliding off to the side. “sorry about that. guess i got my schedules mixed up or something. but hey, at least i didn’t get in your way, right? and isn’t that sort of the same thing as helping, when you think about it?”

Undyne opened her mouth to let him know just what she thought of that sort of reasoning but her words were cut short, turning into an ungraceful gasp when her bedroom door fell open and a rather perturbed Toriel pulled her back inside.

“Papyrus.” Rain leaned over the table and snapped the lid back on the third container of spaghetti. “Here.” She tossed it over to him and he caught it.

“Thanks!” He winked at her with an audible click, his happy demeanor returning once more, then he propped the door closed behind him.

Rain sighed in relief and sagged to the point where she was no longer leaning over the broken table, but laying on it. Her gaze finally turned to Sans.

“heya.”

Her lip twitched in a wordless return.

“you’ve have been busy, huh?”

“Please don’t say that.”

The lights in his eyes narrowed before he nodded in agreement, perhaps sensing the unintended familiarity as well.

“Where the hell have you been? I could have used your help back there.”

“well, technically undyne _is_ my boss and i have to do what she says, so by not being there, couldn’t one argue that -in a way- i _was_ helping you?”

Rain pressed her cheek up against the table and swallowed her mounting frustration. “Asshole.”

His eyes darkened for a second. “you should consider yourself lucky. i warned you to stay away from my brother and you ignored me. i came back to a trashed house and a brother who wouldn’t answer any of my calls. what was i supposed to think of all that, huh? trust me, you wouldn’t have wanted me there to meet you with undyne.”

“Hey, I tried to get away from him!” She snapped. “It’s not my fault he followed me.”

 He sucked in a loud breath and thought for a moment. “i guess not. would have preferred it if you had stayed put though. not a fan of running around like this. all this activity isn’t my style.”

_No shit._ She thought bitterly. She was smart enough to keep that thought to herself though.

Ever so slowly the light began to return to his sockets. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and let out a long, slow sigh. He was quiet for a while, seeming to need a moment to settle back into his own skin- or bones in this case- and re-associate with the situation.

He bobbed his head at the ruined door to Undyne’s room, his smile becoming a little less sinister. “actually, this is nice. weird… but nice.” When she didn’t say anything he continued, “you know there were a lot of things i was prepared to find when i caught up with you again. this…well… this was pretty far down the list.”

She cleared her throat and drummed one hand on the table, the other one fishing around inside of her borrowed coat. She felt something in one of the pockets that she had overlooked before and pulled out a small hand held telescope. She looked through it and watched the spear lodged in the table begin to disintegrate now that Undyne wasn’t there to keep it in existence.  “Toriel is here.” She eventually offered.

He frowned. “who?”

“The lady from the Ruins.”

His smiling mask eased up a bit into something a little more real. “is she now? that’s nice. really, i mean it. i didn’t uh, didn’t think she had made it.”

To be honest Rain was just as confused as he was about that but she decided not to mention it. It sounded like she was just now starting to get some good rep with him and didn’t want to ruin it. She set the telescope down on the table. On top of not having anything far enough away to focus on, its lens had made everything look red. “Yeah I figured you two were friends or something. She’s in there if you want to meet her.” She twitched a hand in the direction of the no doubt crowded room. “Never stuck around with her for long but she seems nice. You should go say hello.”

He thought about  her suggestion for a moment before shaking his head. “nah. maybe later.”

_“Rain, wipe your face.”_ Chara droned in annoyance. Now that she knew there was no chance of turning this day around she was becoming a more passive audience. _“You have a red ring around your eye. It looks ridiculous.”_

Sans frowned as he watched her wipe away the ring she should not have been able to see. It seemed to disturb him a little but he didn’t say anything about it and Rain didn’t notice.

An uncomfortable silence soon stretched out between them.

“So what now?”

He rocked back on his heels and popped a few of his fingers. “well, i  talked things over with a friend of mine. got a safe place set up for you if you will let me take you there. still not sure i believe your whole story about this demon thing but if there is something wrong with your soul, my friend will be able to see it.” He was watching her with one eye again, the other closed like he was half way to achieving a standing nap. “who knows. maybe we can find a way to help you out with whatever’s eatin’ ya.”

She stretched her sore limbs and sent a longing look at the spilled remains of tea on the floor. She would have liked to have had more. “Ok. I’m willing to give it a shot. I should probably get out of here before Undyne starts feeling better anyway. I think she still pissed and I swear Toriel wants to adopt me or something. It’s just… too much at once. I don’t trust myself to stay here much longer. Not with everyone I worked so hard to spare all just laying around like this. But I need to find some better food first. I can’t keep using my legs or they will give out soon. I already pushed myself farther than I should have.” She hiked up her pant leg to show him all the ugly marks on her calves. They were smaller than before but everything was still an oozing, ragged, angry red.

He looked away, hand seeming to go up to the crack over his eye without realizing it. “that’s rough, buddy. when’s the last time you saved?”

She shrugged. “before the fight.”

He clicked his teeth together. “ah. better fix that once we get to where we need to go.” He held out his hand. She gave it a dubious look. “don’t worry. i’ll get you some real grub once we get there.”

“Unless you plan on carrying me around bridal style I don’t think that’s going to happen. I really can’t walk.”

His smile became a little more devious. “don’t worry about it. i know a shortcut.”    


	37. Do Demons Dream?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Do Demons Dream?
> 
> ~~~~~~~~  
> Rain meets the Royal Scientist. Chara continues to dream of her past.

She really should have expected it; they had hitched an unwanted ride with him before after all. All those times back in Snowdin when Chara had been working on giving him that impossible scar had been rife with unwanted teleportation. Yet when she took his hand she still ended up being caught off guard by it.

It felt similar to experiencing a reset but the void they passed through felt… different. There was a lot more to experience physically since their body was still intact. There was a snap of static, the strong smell of ozone and then the world turned dark. She felt herself being pulled forward in a sensation not unlike all the times Sans had flung her around by her soul. The void whipped past them, howling yet breathless. Then in the blink of an eye the darkness pulled itself open like curtains being flung aside and Sans stepped out into the depths of Waterfall. Rain was dragged through the opening with much less ceremony.

She gasped for air. “Oh my god warn me nex-”

He jumped again.

While resetting felt like falling backwards into a pool of light, these jumps felt like being dragged forward through a closing doorway.

They emerged in Hotland near his unmanned sentry station.

“God dammit I wasn’t ready!”

“one more.”

“Hold on give me a second to-”

When they emerged from the darkness for the third and last time, Rain collapsed onto the polished steel colored tiles of a hallway she had never seen before. The walls were off-white and naked. The floor was slightly warm to the touch and the ceiling hung a little lower than she would have liked.

She pulled herself up into a sitting position and took a few deep gulps of air. She sent him a withering glare he pretended not to see. Eventually she gave up and looked up at the glaring lights overhead. A few of them flickered in their struggle to hold on to life. The air was stale.“Where are we?”  

“well for safety reasons if you haven’t already guessed then it’s probably best that you don’t know the exact location. if you come back later on less friendly terms we’d like to keep this place on the down low. i’m sure you understand.”

She slowly pushed herself to her feet, leaning against the wall and looking down a long hallway. “I guess.”

Sans wandered down the hall, glancing into a few open entryways until he found the one he was looking for. “here we are. this one is yours.” He gestured to the doorless room behind him.

She slowly made her way towards the room. He waited in silence while she struggled to limp over to the opening. Her mussels were seizing up and making it hard to move. Out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand twitch and his brow-line soften. He looked he was struggling with whether or not to offer her some help but when she accidentally locked eyes with him his gaze slid off to the side and he tucked his hands back into his pockets, rocking back on his heels.

Her lip twitched in an attempted smile that died young and she lowered her eyes.

Well, she appreciated the thought. She knew this couldn’t be comfortable for him. It certainly wasn’t comfortable for her.

Chara growled and backed up against the confines of their mind like a wary cat when she saw the room. It was small. Just a few paces wide on either side and painted with the same colors as the hallway. It had a small bed with a faded mulberry blanket in one corner of the room and a metal desk tucked away in the other. It took some effort for Rain to force her body to cross the threshold into the cell-like room.

“have you saved yet?” Sans asked to her back as she crept inside.

“No.”

“well, now would be as good a time as any.”

She eased herself onto the bed with a sigh. It was a little on the lumpy side and had a strange smell to it. “Oh. Well, I kind of need some motivation to do it.” She leaned forward and perched her chin atop her steepled fingers as she tried to think of something.

He rubbed the back of his neck in thought. “you saved undyne and didn’t hurt anyone else, right? doesn’t locking that scenario down fill you with determination?”

“Kinda.”

He cleared his nonexistent throat and looked at the floor, leaning against the doorway and thinking for a moment. The words sat between his teeth for a while before he spat them out. He didn’t want it to sound like a promise. “what about the prospect of getting help? we could finally figure out what’s making you tick. don’t you feel determined to find answers?”

She closed her eyes. “That helps.” She remained quiet for a moment longer, kicking off her shoes and focusing on the warmth of the floor and the distant electric hum of the lights. “Ok. Got it.”

His eyes slid off to one side again and he folded his arms. “ah.”

“What?”

“nothing. just thought that maybe if i paid close attention id be able to sense it or something, the save i mean.  sometimes i can feel the reloads.“  He shrugged. “anyway, thanks for being so cooperative. guess i can bring her down here now.” He snapped his fingers at her-or rather he clacked them- there didn’t seem to be much difference. “i will bring down some new clothes for you too. i want my coat back. i didn’t expect you to wear so many holes in it so fast.”

“Sorry.” She droned without much purpose.

“eh. better a coat than a person i guess. be right back.”  He pressed a button on his side of the entrance then flitted away again in a haze of smeared static.

Both Rain and Chara soon noticed that a strange hum he filled the air, running along the walls. It was soft and electrics stronger than the drone of the distant lights. Chara bristled. _“He just locked us in again.”_

“I’m not surprised.” She had expected as much. It seemed to be an ongoing thing with this guy- with the Underground in general really. Her world had become one where the question was not so much whether or not she was going to get walled in, but whether or not she could find a way to cheat her way back out when it happened.

_“Mark my words Rain, you are going to regret this. You are either going to end up strapped face up on a metal table with your guts in a jar, or the walls are going to start closing in around us like a giant trash compactor.”_ Chara sent distrustful glances at the walls, which felt too low, too close and far too featureless to be trusted.

“Well if that happens then it will be on me, wont it? You will get to go dive into a dream and leave me to deal with it on my own.”

_“They are either going to use you or betray you.”_ She warned with a hum.

“That’s alright. Haven’t you already done both?” Her words dripped with bitter sarcasm. “If that’s the case then I may as well sample all the flavors of cruelty life has to offer. But I don’t think Sans would go through all this trouble just to kill me. He wouldn’t want me to reset when his friends are finally all in one piece.”

Chara snorted in disbelief. If an oily cloud of darkness could roll its eyes, she’d be rolling them hard enough to disconnect from this version of reality right now. _“Fine. I will let you see how this plays out. I’m patient. You have the rest of your life to mess up. I’ll let you see where this goes. It will be a nice break from the repetitive monotony we have been stuck in anyway.”_

Rain batted her eyes, words dripping with poison honey as she settled in to her new cage. “Oh wowie, thanks Chara! You are the epitome of kindness!”

***

Sans took his sweet time in showing up again. Rain began to wonder if maybe he really had simply ditched her in a cell. She was teetering on the border of falling asleep by the time she heard the soft click and patter of someone coming down the hall again.

She didn’t even realize she had curled up on the bed until she had to crack an eye open to see who was coming and realized she wasn’t sitting upright anymore.

Sans was standing by the door with a small pile of folded clothes in his arms. Her view of him was distorted by several bars of dancing energy that only seemed to become visible when someone approached the exit. She was given the impression that whatever this new type of barrier was, unlike the other shields she had come across, hitting it would probably damage her more than it would damage the device.

“well, that’s her.”

She sat back up. Sans seemed a little surprised that she was still awake.

“O-oh. Hello.” A tentative voice greeted.

Her eyes drifted off to the side where a second monster had gone previously unnoticed, only half visible between the dancing bars of energy. She inched into view a little more, coming out from hiding behind Sans and waving a clawed hand. She reached for something on her side of the door and the energy shielding switched off.

Sans tilted his head in the new monster’s direction. “i assume you have already met dr. alphys before?”

Rain’s eyes widened a little in surprise. “Oh! No, actually.” She turned to look at the new monster and offered a friendly smile, hands tucked neatly against her lap as she took in the sight of the fabled Royal Scientist: the most cunning and elusive monster to have never been seen.

She was a reptilian creature. Her scales were a pale yellow and she had a three pointed bony crest running down the back of her head. Her short, thick tail seemed to wrap itself around her leg in a nervous manner. She wore a white lab coat covered in faint soup and coffee stains. The clothes she wore underneath her coat were the same boring shade of stained white.

After having gotten used to having to crane her neck up to look at all of the looming monsters of the Underground, Alphys’s short, chubby stature almost felt odd and out of place to Rain. She was probably only a head taller than Sans, but her poor posture made her seem shorter than she really was.

Alphys offered an awkward smile. “T-that’s ok. I guess I haven’t really done anything of note yet. M-my projects are still in development and I don’t get out much. S-so you probably just…overlooked me?”  She crept into the room and offered her hand in greeting.

Rain took it. “No. I know of you. I just never… _found_ you. You’re a, um, a hero you know. You saved a lot of monsters.”

Alphys blinked in shock, stuck somewhere between being disturbed and flattered. She fidgeted with her glasses. Her smile made her front teeth stick out. “I-I did? Me? A hero?” She laughed. “Wow. That’s um, that’s not something I expected to hear.”

Chara scoffed. _“This is their Royal Scientist? Asgore’s standards must be slipping.”_

_“Be nice.”_

_“Look at her! She’s a wreck! I bet she sleeps in that coat.”_

_“Have you seen what we sleep in?”_

_“I can’t believe this is the person who outsmarted me.”_

Rain realized they had been shaking hands now for an awkward amount of time now and finally let go. “I’m Rain, by the way. Or Chara. I guess. Depending on which ah, ‘mood’ you catch me in.”

Alphys seemed to pale a little. “Oh, yeah. Y-you think it’s the um, the Dreemurr’s kid, right?” It was blatantly obvious that Rain’s claim made the scientist uneasy and at least a little doubtful.

“Oh I _know_ it’s her.”

“R-right.  Sans told me about that.”

Rain tried to look Alphys in the eye but every time she did, Alphys started staring at the floor. She cleared her throat. “And do you uh... believe me?”

She started fidgeting with her fingers. “W-well. I um, I don’t- we don’t- we really don’t have a lot of information on the effects that s-soul absorption c-can have on d-different parties. You know? S-so…” she adjusted her glasses again and looked at the floor, “So I won’t know what to think until w-we run some tests?”

Rain blinked, not quite sure how to discern that last part. Was it a question of whether or not the tests would be worth it, or her attempt to ask permission to preform them?

_“Oh. I get it. We are in that lab of hers aren’t we? Curious.”_ Rain felt her eyes stray around the room as Chara took everything in with a new layer of interests. _“I didn’t know there was more to that ugly building. I suppose we overlooked something in our other runs. Maybe this is where she’s been hiding all this time.”_ Chara grinned, a sinister shade of gleeful black streaking across Rain's mind. _“I bet you could hide a lot of monsters down here, couldn’t you? I guess this run won’t be worthless after all. Thanks, Rain.”_

Rain swallowed hard and cursed herself. “Ok. Yeah. Do whatever you need to do.”

Alphys smiled, relived and a little more confidant. “G-great! I should have everything up and running in a few days. I have been getting things ready ever since Sans told me about you.” She looked over her shoulder, seeming to stare through the walls and focus in on a project left at a distance. “W-we have never really had to uh, had to deal with a human soul still contained within i-its b-body before.” She tried to look Rain in the eye but couldn’t quite do it, her gaze flitting around the room while her claws worked together in a guilty fit of nervousness.

Rain took in a sharp breath through her teeth, remembering that her best friend’s disembodied soul had probably been on this woman’s counter before.

The noise made Alphys flinched away a little, head ducked in momentary shame. “S-so it’s going to take a while to modify my equipment. You know, s-so you will be ok.”

_“I told you, you were going to end up either on a table or in a jar.”_

Rain rubbed at her temple. “Fine. Whatever you need to do, do it. I will cooperate as much as I can. I’m sure you will do everything in your power to help me figure out this mess.” 

Alphys’s smile returned. She looked quite determined now. “I-I will. I Promise.” She looked around the room, observing its meager furnishings. “Oh! Sorry, I almost forgot.” She stepped back into the hall and returned with a box that contained a few extra pillows and a pair of slippers that probably were not Rain’s size. On top of the box sat a few takeout containers. Rain’s mouth began to water. “Sans said you can heal really fast if you eat. S-sorry for not getting this to you sooner. Looks like you really n-need it...”

“If this tastes even remotely as good as it smells I will forgive you.” Rain excused, snatching up the nearest container like a wolf descending on a helpless fawn. If Alphys had not shoved a plastic spoon right under her nose she would have started using her hands. Everyone watched her eat for a while, not exactly sure what to do. “Keep talking I’m listening.” She said between the mouthfuls of rice and vegetables she inhaled.

Alphys scratched at her frill. “Um, well that’s kind of it for now. S-sorry that the room is so bare. I kind of had to throw something together on short notice.” She narrowed her eyes at Sans. “And my help disappeared as soon as I mentioned cleaning anything.” She brightened a little. “But hopefully you won’t have to be here for long.”

Chara scoffed at this. _“That’s a lie. There is no way they can “fix” you in a couple of days. They don’t have the power to help you. They are just too afraid to admit it because they don’t like knowing they are helpless.”_

_“We will see.”_

Chara made another disappointed noise. _“I still can’t believe that this is who they chose to replace the old Royal Scientist. You should have seen the monster who was in charge when I was alive. Now they knew how to get things done! Who knows. You may have even had a chance with the old one helping you!”_

_“Oh yeah? Who were they? What was so great about them?”_

Chara poised herself like she was about to take a deep breath and spew out a long list of reasons and stories about this previous scientist but the words just sort of faded out of thought. _“I…don’t actually remember their name.”_ Chara scowled internally. _“Actually, I can’t remember exactly what it was they were working on when I was alive. Guess I was too young to understand. But they got stuff done. I know that much. And they were…tall. Intimidating.”_ Chara withdrew into herself, puzzled and a little unnerved that words and memories that had been sitting on the tip of her tongue had suddenly dissipated into a cloud of fog the second she tried to bring them to the surface.

Rain let her stew. Good. Now Chara knew how Rain felt about half the aspects of her life that had been erased from her mind. With Chara no longer there to distract her, she realized she had spent the last minute or two in a somewhat rude kind of silence, having once again forgotten that no one else could hear her internal conversations.

“Well, I-it was nice meeting you, Rain. I need to get back to work now b-but if you need anything I should be able to hear you over the speakers.” She pointed a claw at small panel and a speaker up against the far wall. “I-I’m going to have to lock you in here for safety r-reasons now... sorry.”

“I understand.”

Sans winked at her. “yep. can’t let you go wandering the halls alone at night. sorry. it’s a bit of a mess down here. wouldn’t want you to get _absorbed_ in a _sticky_ situation.”

Alphys tugged at his sleeve and hissed “Sans!” through her teeth.

“sorry.”

Alphys looked over her shoulder and gave Rain one last forced smile before scuttling away.

Rain frowned. “What was that about?”

Sans shrugged. “s’nothing. guess it was more of an inside joke now that I think about it. sorry.”

_“I bet he’s hiding something.”_

Rain snorted. _“He’s always hiding something.”_

_“Well this was something big enough that he thought we would have already known about it by now. Don’t you see? He was testing us. Mark my words, Rain. People don’t have secret underground-underground labs unless they are hiding something.”_

Sans cleared his throat to catch her attention when it became obvious she had stopped paying attention to the room again. _“_ anyway, got you some clothes. just a bunch of old stuff Papyrus and i don’t wear anymore.” He gave her a friendly wink. “i apologize in advance for the colors. my style isn’t as cool as my bros.”

She accepted the bundle of overly bright sweaters and mute, wrinkled t-shirts and shorts. “I’ll pull it off somehow.” She droned with a dry smirk.

With that Sans excused himself and locked her away again.

She changed into a blessedly clean, if somewhat poorly matched, set of clothes and promptly finished inhaling her meal so she could heal herself. She sighed in relief as the pain ebbed away like a receding tide.

She checked her legs. Things had scarred pretty bad this time. It was all ugly and twisted looking but she didn’t really care at this point. She had long since gotten past her vanity.

With the pain no longer there to keep her awake, she made a nest for herself on the floor and promptly fell into the oblivion of a deep sleep; relieved to finally, at long last, have a chance to rest without having to worry about waking up someplace else covered in dust. The electric hum of the locked door was a good as any lullaby.

***

_She could hear them laughing before she even rounded the corner. She could also hear the all too familiar sound of his sniffs and stiffened sobs._

_“N-no! Don’t say that! How can you say that?” He whimpered._

_“Oh geez, is he crying again?” A voice chided. “Lighten up Dreemurr. We were only joking.”_

_“Yeah. Toriel would never let it happen.” Another voice piped up. “Even if it_ would _be better for the rest of us.” They added under their breath._

_Chara picked up her pace, jaw set and hands balling into fists. Her dozen keychains and books jingled and thumped against her back as she rounded the corner. “Hey!” She snapped, spotting a ghost, a slime and a spider child standing over her crying brother. “Leave him alone.”_

_At first the small group tried to bunch together, arms crossed to try and look tough. “Oh yeah? Or else what?”_

_“We didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not our fault he’s a crybaby.”  
_

_“We are not afraid of you!”_

_She did her signature creepy face, her eyes just as wide as her smile. “Well you **should** be.” She slipped her backpack off her shoulder and unzipped it, grabbing the first thing she found, which happened to be her aluminum thermos, and clicked her tongue. “It’s been a long time since I have had to give anyone a **Lincoln Memorial Special.** ” She tilted her head, smirk going all the wider. “Oh, do they have those in the Underground? It’s a method I picked up from the **human warrior** tribes up on the surface after all.”_

_The monsters began to look uncertain of themselves._

_“Chara, n-no!” Asriel sniffed. “No leave them alone. They are- they are right. I’m just being a big crybaby. Don’t hurt them! You promised you would try not to get into fights anymore after the last time.”_

_The slime monster made nervous squishing sounds, its single eye darting back and forth in fear._

_The spider girl made an exasperated sigh and tried to flake out without making it look like anyone had scared her into retreating “Come on guys. Let’s go. I've got better things to do than deal with the crybaby and his weirdo sibling.”_

_“If they are supposed to be the future of human and monsters, I’m scared.” The ghost whispered as the gang hurried off._

_Chara rolled her eyes and went to help her brother up off the ground. “Are you ok? Did they hurt you?” If they did, there would be hell to pay._

_He rubbed at his eyes and accepted her hand. “No.” He mumbled._

_Chara made a disgruntled noise of annoyance. “Then why were you crying?” She snapped._

_“They were saying mean things about you again. And mom. And dad…and me.”_

_She gave him a long-suffering shove off in the direction of home. “Come on. Let’s go. Crybaby.”_

_“Sorry.” He dabbed at his eyes again and put on a brave face even though his lip still quivered._

_“You've got to be tough, Asriel. How are you going to be a good king if you let everyone bully you?”_

_“Dad is a good king and he’s soft.”_

_“No. Mom is a good king.” She snorted._

_He was quiet for a moment. “You weren’t really going to give them a Lincoln Memorial Special, were you? That sounds really bad.”_

_Chara giggled to herself, perhaps sounding just a shade too dark and gleeful. “No. I just made that up.”_

_“So… there are no warrior clans of humans living around our mountain?”_

_She threw her head back and laughed. “God no! Just a bunch of stupid religious nuts.” Her expression darkened and her mouth snapped shut. She had never told anyone more than the absolute basics about her life on the surface. She had told them that she had no longer had a home or family to go back to, and that and she had fallen into the Underground while trying to take shelter from a storm. That was it._

_She handed him her thermos. It still had juice in it and he looked like he could use it. “But if they **had** hurt you, I was going to smash them over the head with this and call it whatever the hell I wanted to.”_

_Asriel ducked his head nervously. “Please don’t do that. You know I don’t like it when you hurt people for me. And… And don’t swear.” Asriel pleaded, gladly taking the juice. “Mom got upset with me for saying that the other day. She thinks I learned it from dad.”_

_“Are you going to rat me out?”_

_He looked a little guilty and ducked his head a little more. “Of course not. We are best friends, aren’t we?”_

_Chara gave a group of monster kids across the street a warning glare as they hurried off. “Yeah. Yeah we are friends. So I’ll say whatever the hell I want and will trust you not to tell anyone. That's what friends do. They keep secrets.”_

_Asriel groaned but didn't object._

_They put several more streets between themselves and the school before they started talking again. “So what did they say to you anyway?” She heard him make a little stifled noise as he tried not to cry again. He looked at the ground as they walked, causing his long ears to droop out in front of his face and hide his expression from her. She trotted ahead a few steps so she could watch him. “Asriel?”_

_“They said that it was selfish of mom and dad to adopt you.” He said; his voice a soft whisper. “They said that if dad was any sort of good king he would have used your soul to cross the barrier and go get more humans so he could break the barrier!”_

_Chara blinked in surprise. Asriel sounded…angry. His small fangs came in and out of view as he tried to keep his lips from drawing back. He was rubbing at his eyes again, trying not to cry. “How could they say that? It’s not true! It’s not selfish. You are the hope for humans and monsters. We are going to grow up and be ambassadors. Its… it’s just not true!”_

_Chara sighed in exasperation and gave her brother a rough hug. “Stop crying you idiot.” She ordered. “No one is taking me away.”_

_“But how could they say something like that about you?” He repeated._

_She nudged him along. If they were late getting home someone would be a worried, fussy mess when they got there. “Well, they are right you know. I mean, I’m glad dad didn’t do it. But I’ll never understand_ why _he chose not to.” She stuck her hands in her pockets and kicked a pebble across the street. “He should have. He should have taken my soul and saved all the monsters down here and let them enjoy the surface instead.” Her expression darkened. “And then he should have shoved all of the humans underground where they belong.”_

_Asriel looked absolutely horrified. Instead of hurrying along like she wanted, he latched onto her again with all his strength, forcing the air out of her lungs with his hug. “Don’t say that. Don’t ever say that!  We love you Chara. We love you so much. We would never hurt you.”_

_She pried him off of her and looked away. “Yes. I know. I don’t understand why though. I’m not a good person.”_

_“Yes you are. You_ are _good! I know you are. You look out for me, don’t you?”_

_She was quiet for a moment .“I suppose. I guess you will be stuck living with me looking out for you forever then, won’t you?”_

_No one had ever said it. No one had ever exactly implied it but Chara knew why everyone called her the future of all monsters. Monsters lived much longer than humans. The Dreemurr family would still be enjoying their nearly eternal youth long after she had grown old and died._

_No one could cross the barrier without both a monster and a human soul yet their parents continued to teach both of them about the duties of being an ambassador to the humans living up on the surface. It didn’t take a genius to read between the lines. Asgore didn’t need to kill her himself. He  would let time do it for him. Then Asriel could absorb her soul and they would return to the surface with all of these supposedly lovely stories about the kindness of monsters to share with everyone._

_Asriel didn’t seem to realize they were being used. He did not understand that the only reason Chara was important to the Underground was because of how useful she would be when she was dead. He was too busy being enthralled by the romanticized idea of being able to spend the rest of his life with his sibling and best friend to notice the details._

_Chara wasn’t exactly sure what she thought of the idea yet. She didn’t exactly like it but she assumed that this was her penance. This was how she would redeem herself. So she kept quiet about it._

_The rest of the walk home was uneventful._

_***_

_Their parents were in a meeting when they got home so they played in the garden for a bit before wandering into their room. Chara lounged around on the bed, looking up at the ceiling while Asriel remained stretched out on the floor, coloring. He kicked his legs back and forth as he scribbled._ _“Almost done.” He looked over his work with a critical eye. “Hmm. I think it needs some more blue. And orange. Maybe some green.” He twisted around to look at her. “Can I barrow your orange crayon? I can trade you for my red.”_

_She chucked her crayons at him without getting up. “Free of charge.”_

_“Thanks!” He returned to his work. “So, what about you? How’s your drawing coming?”_

_Chara looked at her drawing._ _She had started a picture of her own but had lost interest in it._ _She didn’t think she should show him this one. “It’s done.”_

_“Can I see it?”_

_“No.”_

_“Oh. Ok.” He worked for a few minutes more before proudly declaring his work of art finished. He shot up to his feet and presented it to her like a proud puppy who had just retrieved a stick. Chara sat up attentively.“I call it:” he made a grand gesture with his hand, “Dreemurr reborn: the Absolute Hyper God of Magic!”_

_It started out as a hiss and a snort but soon Chara fell over laughing, legs kicking at the air as she clutched her gut. “Oh god! Did you seriously name it that?”_

_He looked flustered and taken aback. “Y-yeah! of course I did. It’s supposed to be us when I absorb your soul, see? We will be super powerful so we can protect all the monsters and stuff. I already know what all of our bullet patterns will be called and everything!”_

_“Dare I ask?”_

_“W-well there um, there will be one called Galactica Ablazing and-”_

_“Stop! Just Stop. Kill me now!” She wheezed, falling off the bed. “Asriel, there is no way in hell I’m going to be shooting rainbows out of my eyes like we are in that drawing.”_

_“Well then what would_ you _want to shoot out of your eyes?” He huffed, crossing his arms._

_She paused for a moment then grinned. “Blood.”_

_He shuffled back and forth, looking  uneasy. “That…that’s really creepy, Chara. It would scare the humans.”_

_“So? They deserve to be scared.” She crawled back up onto her bed and flopped over. “Besides, if we looked anything like that,” she pointed a lazy finger at the drawing, “they would still think we were a demon and try to kill us.”_

_“A demon?” He had heard her use this term before. “But… this kind of looks like me. Do…do I look like a demon?” His brow furrowed in worry._

_She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be stupid. You look like a monster. Most people don’t even know what real demons look like.”_

_“Oh. Do you know what they look like then?”_

_Past accusations and threats rattled around in her head. Labels that had once terrified her, labels that she had gradually gotten tired of running from. They seemed to echo all too loud in her mind amidst the questioning silence. For a brief moment it hurt. Then she grinned her signature creepy smile and embraced it. “Yeah. They look like me.”_

_“Chara…don’t say that.” He crawled over to her and gave her a hug._

_Why was he always so clingy?  She had to make him stronger somehow. If he was this weak when she died the humans would kill him._

_“You are not a demon either, Chara. I promise.” He mumbled._

_Her smile softened a little. The darkness faded from her eyes and she hugged him back. He was soft. Everything about him was like a big squishy teddy bear. For the first time in a long time, she doubted all those accusations she had grown up with. “Are you sure about that?”_

_“Positive.” He swore._

_She looked at her own drawing and thought for a moment. “Asriel, did I ever tell you why I climbed this mountain?”_

_“No.” He let her go and sat down next to her, worried by her sudden change in demeanor._

_“I will tell you if you want. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else, ok? It has to be a secret. Not even Mom and Dad can know. Do you promise?”_

_“I promise.”_

_She took a deep breath. “I was running.”_

_“Running from what?”_

_“My sins.” She drew her knees up against her chest. She looked haunted but still a smirk tugged at her lips as she stared at the drawing. “You see… I killed my parents.”_


	38. Next Time Use the Straps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next Time Use the Straps 
> 
> Rain goes in for a checkup.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey i hit 50 likes this week! thank you! :D

She no longer had a desk.  Chara had trashed it in an escape attempt. Now all she had was her bed. The utter lack of anything stimulating was the price of safety. It left them both bored out of their mind and it would be a lie to say they weren’t both stir crazy by now. The stagnant waiting period did not sit well with them since they had long since  gotten used to their nomadic lifestyle.

Move through the Ruins.

March through the snow as fast as you can to avoid getting too cold.

Slog through Waterfall and don’t get caught.

Hunt stragglers in the heat of Hotland.

Fight Sans.

Fight Sans.

_Fight Sans._

Fight, reset, fight, reset, fight, reset.

Run into an impossible problem? Just start all over again.

Run through the Ruins...

After all that, staying in one place felt wrong. It was nice to be in a relatively safe spot though. No need to worry about wandering monsters finding them, no running from Undyne, no forcing herself to stay awake out of fear of what she may find when she woke up.

For the first few days Rain did almost nothing but sleep. It felt so damn good to sleep. She even started to get used to using a bed again. Sleep was the best thing _ever_. It was a gift from the gods.

Everything else was much harder to ease back into however.

She had stopped having to worry about basic hygiene. Clothes would mend next reset, dirt would wash away and she had long since stopped caring about the state of her hair. What would have been the point of bothering if you knew the results would just get rolled back?

But now time was progressing naturally. In all honestly it was painfully slow and boring. She had to get used to the basics again.

She had been gifted a hairbrush, towels and a toothbrush now.

Chara tried turning their first toothbrush into a something stabby, like some sort of crafty criminal trying to start a prison riot. But an opportunity to use her Toothbrush of Doom never presented itself and they eventually asked for a new one when Chara got sick of the dirty taste in their mouth and agreed not to do it again.

Every once in a while from some remote location Alphys would lock down the elevators and all the doors except one and Rain would be free to walk down the dreary hall to a nearby bathroom so she could shower and brush her teeth.

It had been a very long time since she had been able to enjoy a warm shower. The smell of shampoo was amazing. Her hair felt smooth and silky again. And her legs! Shaved legs in clean sheets! The first night she got to experience it she couldn’t sleep because she just kept giggling and sliding her legs around under the covers. Even Chara had to admit that she had missed being clean and soft.

It was the little things she had come to love and appreciate having again. They were monumental markers of her progress on the path to recovery.

But there was still so much that was difficult.

With the reintroduction of a natural sleep cycle came nightmares. It seemed that as Rain grew stronger and Chara was slowly forced into a less prominent roll, Rain began to get unintentional glimpses past the veil of darkness Chara shrouded herself in. Behind that dark veil were the huddled the memories of a troubled child.

Suddenly being able to sleep became a little less pleasant. Rain had already survived one abusive childhood, having to endure another was not a chance she was prone to jump at and when she tried to talk to Chara about it, it only made her angry.

...Maybe they shouldn’t be sleeping so much after all.

Days passed. Or at least she assumed they did.

Alphys would sometimes chat with her over the speaker now and then. It usually started out as an update on her progress but it always devolved into talk of anime., which was fine with Rain. She had loved anime up on the surface. Unfortunately it seemed that everything Alphys managed to get down here in the Underground was pretty old. She kept going on and on about Mew Mew Kissie Cutie and how the second movie had ruined the character arc.

Rain had shocked her into stunned silence when she argued that the movie had set things up perfectly for the next season and the third movie, were Mew Mew had discovered she had a roguish long lost twin brother who was working with her rivals.

Apparently Alphys had not been aware of that season or the third movie, even though the series had ended during Rain’s childhood.

Alphys would probably never be lucky enough to find a copy.

Of course once Rain brought up her love of horrible English dubs and 4kids edits Alphys chose to ignore her in favor of work once more. 

Rain was staring up at a mark on the ceiling that looked like a little white dog when Alphys’s voice crackled in over the speaker again, interrupting another otherwise featureless day and bringing an end to her silent treatment. “H-hey, are you awake?”

She rolled out of bed and hit the intercom button. “Yeah.”

“I think everything is good to go. We can run our first test today. Sans is heading over to you now. T-thought you may like the warning.”

She turned to look at the exit. She was far from surprised to find the skeleton already peering at her through the haze of energy, smile firmly in place as he gave her a wave. “Thanks.”

“you up for a trip?”

“To the end of the hall and back again?” She asked, voice dry to the point of sounding bored despite her stomach spontaneously tying itself into nervous knots. “Sure.”

“alright. well, here we go.” He took a bracing breath and switched off the energy feed. They stared at each other across the empty space for a few awkward seconds, Sans apparently half expecting her to charge forward and attack him now that there was nothing there to stop her.

She stepped through, waiting for him to offer his hand so they could teleport. Instead he stepped aside and gestured down towards the elevator at the far end of the hall.

“What, no fancy teleporting today?”

“nah.”

Rain had assumed that she was on the bottom floor of the lab but one ride in the elevator proved her wrong. It was a little unnerving to realize how much farther down the facility went. They descended in mutual silence, both of their minds too far elsewhere to consider the lack of conversation awkward. When the elevator slowed to a halt and the door opened again, Rain glanced at the buttons and realized that wherever they were headed, there were still a few floors left under them by the time they got there. She couldn’t help but entertain the uneasy idea that maybe Chara was right. People didn’t have secret labs under their friendly looking ones unless they were doing something that would have made the friendly one look not so friendly anymore.

The rooms lit up for them as they went. The smell of regular dust made the slightly warm air feel all the more stale. Rain scowled at some of the potted plants, reaching out to rub one of the leaves as they passed by. It was plastic. Plastic and thick with dust. Why even bother? Would it have killed them to get some real dirt down here?

Eventually they came to a room far cleaner than the rest. It still reeked of cleaning supplies and the lights overhead must have been recently changed because they were more luminous than the ones that had led them here. There were a few desks laden with papers and old monitors. In the center of the room there was a metal table with straps on a raised platform. The platform was circular and the table’s rectangular shape barely fit on it. Propped up against one of the walls were several feet of removed metal plating and glass tubing that would have once fit one of the smaller, more elevated inner rings atop the rise, had they been intact.

Apparently they had had to mutilate quite a bit of the original device in order to scan a soul still stuck in its meat suit. Like steampunk stalagmites, some bits of the old device still jutted up around the table at awkward points. Some of them still displayed dead readout screens. Several strange pieced of apparatus hung over the scene, looming over the table on long metal necks that bent and remained poised overhead like the curled legs of a spider amidst a web of power cables that hung low around the circle like a curtain. Eventually said cables trailed off into several of the other machines shoved against the walls. Alphys was currently behind one of these intimidating walls of technology, waist deep in a nest of things that still needed to be plugged in.

She peeked over one of the many monitors and offered a friendly smile. “Hey. Give me a minute. I should have this all set up soon.” She pointed a screwdriver at an open box of doughnuts on one of the other desks. “Help yourself while you wait.”

Rain sat down at the desk and nibbled at the doughnut, ignoring its odd mealy taste while she stared at the machine. “Is that thing safe?”

“mostly.”

She eyed the straps. “Is it going to hurt?”

Sans joined in her observation of the rather dodgy looking machine. “no idea.”

“H-hey… don’t say it like that. I think I did a pretty good job of rearranging everything, so…”

Rain put her doughnut down. She was no longer in the mood.

Sans gave her a sideways glance. “how’s the uh… the _kid_ doin’?”

“Chara? Sleeping. There’s not much else for her to do down here.”

He kept his voice light but she wasn’t sure he was joking when he said: “good. maybe we won’t have to use the straps then.”

How encouraging.

Sans ushered her over to the table, giving her a hand up as she settled in on the cold steel. Despite knowing she could reload at any time, her heart still raced.

“nervous?”

“A little. Remind me what this thing is supposed to do again?”

“just takes soul readings. tells us its dominant characteristics, dt levels, stuff like that. if you are telling the truth and there is another human floating around in there, then we will get some pretty abnormal readings. it shouldn’t hurt but it will probably feel kind of weird. on a completely unrelated note: you may feel, see or hear strange things while you are here. unless something is causing you physical pain just ignore it.”

“Yep. Great. Ok. Possible hallucinations. Not concerning at all!”

He chuckled. “relax. machines are alphys’s element. you will be fine. right, al?”

“Right! Just warming things up now!” She called from the back of the room.

Rain drummed her nails against the table and chewed on her lip while she tried not to look directly at the myriad of gutted machinery around her.

Sans was watching her from down below. “you ok up there? you seem a little tense.”

“I’m fine.” She said between her teeth. “It’s just a little uncomfortable is all.”

“oh.” He paused for a second. “want a pillow?”

She frowned and peered down at him in time to see him pull a full sized pillow out from under his shirt. “Oh my god! Are you serious? Just how much shit do you keep in there!”

“what? it’s for taking naps.”

She reached for the offered gift with a snort. “I always wondered how you managed to fill out your clothes so well.”

“uh, it’s called being big boned, missy.”

“It’s called stuffing a pillow down your shirt.” She amended with an amused eye roll. “Figures you would pack the essentials for sleeping on the job. Thanks, I guess.” She punched the pillow a few times before settling back down. That was a little better. At least the gesture itself was reassuring.  “First ketchup and now this. I’m surprised you could make it all fit. What other things do you use your Time Lord technology for?”

Sans went unexpectedly still. “time lord?”

“Yeah, you know, bigger on the inside than the outside? Like the TARDIS?”

“the what?”

“It’s a time machine.”

He shifted uncomfortably from side to side. “i didn’t know humans had time machines too.”

“it’s just a TV show.”

“…ah.”

Rain frowned. “Wait, do monsters have time machines?”

“what?”

“you said you ‘didn’t know humans had time machines ‘ _too_.’ do you have a fucking time machine?”

“lady,” he rolled his eyes, “if i had a working time machine don’t you think I would have used it by now?”

She made a displeased face and forced her head to sink deeper into the pillow so he couldn’t see her embarrassment. “I _guess_.” She grumbled, playing with her thumbs and attempting to avoid eye contact once she realized how dumb she sounded.

They listened to Alphys scurrying back and forth in the background for a while longer, the awkward silence chipping away at the minutes.

“need some help, al?” Sans called in desperation.

“N- no. All I need to do is connect this to this, then switch on the scanner… alright! E-everything should be- wait, no hold on. I forgot to plug in the stabilizer. One m-moment.”

Rain cleared her throat as the lull stretched on. “So… Umm, see any good movies lately? Read any interesting books?”

Sans shrugged. “nope.”

Rain puffed out her cheeks in thought, scrambling to find something else to talk about. “Sooo, what is _Earthbound_?”

Sans blinked in surprise. “what?”

“That story you have in your room. I think the main character was called Chiller? What is that?”

He sucked in a long breath through his teeth and rocked back on his heels. “i can’t believe you read that.”

Rain gave him a deadpan look. “it’s a fanfic, isn’t it?”

He turned away from her, shoulders hunching and his voice reaching a slightly higher pitch than normal. “i have no idea what you are talking about- hey al! you sure you don’t need any help?”

Rain smirked. “Chiller is totally your self-insert, isn’t he?” 

Alphys poked her nose out from a nearby panel and shook her head. “Um, n-no thanks Sans, I-I think I finally-”

Sans started talking over the top of her in an overly loud voice. “what’s that, al? oh yeah, sure! i can help you with that thing you just said!” He spun around and gave Rain a wink and double finger guns as he rapidly backpedaled out of the situation. “sorry pal, gotta bail. lets talk about this never, yeah?”

Rain sat up on her elbow and called after him. “Don’t think I didn’t realize that _Chiller_ is a super edgy font, Sans! you can’t run from the truth!”

“what? I can’t hear you over all this science I am doing all the way back here!”

 “your pushing buttons for a screen that not even on!”

 “can’t…hear….yo..reaking….up!”

“You’re in another part of the room, not a shitty radio tower!”

As if the world had finally grown weary of their game, all the screens sparked to life one after another as Alphys popped up out of a nest of wires and cables. “O-ok! Everything is green! We should be able to get our readings now.” She wove back and forth between a few panels before settling into her station and resting her hands over a series of buttons. “S-sans, you can get back in position now.” She flexed her fingers and took a deep breath. “Ok. Here we go!”

Rain flinched when the platform began to lift itself up. Sans returned but kept his distance as several spider legs of machinery began to unfurl themselves and peer down at her. Luckily most of the needle-like ones remained offline, looming like shadows in the corners of her vision. Meanwhile, several curved dishes, laser-like pointers and other odd contraptions got right in her face.

“Ok. So, since your soul is shielded in your b-body and the apparatus wasn’t built for s-soul extraction, S-Sans will have to pull it up to the surface for us. Ok?”

She looked over the side of the table to where Sans had moved to, craning his neck to look at her. He held out his left hand, eye beginning to show with faint hints of blue. “ready?”

She grit her teeth. She hated this part. “Go.” She grunted. She felt the wrenching sensation of her soul being yanked to the surface. It was not unlike the sensation of falling awake in a dream. Her soul appeared before her, it’s usually red, heart shaped light wreathed in an eerie blue. She jerked in place, body levitating a few inches off the table before Sans let go, causing her to smack her head against the table. “Ow!” Even with the pillow it still hurt.

“sorry.”

Chara jerked awake, nearly skyrocketing to the surface in alarm. _“What was that? What is it? What’s happening?”_ All her muscles tensed and she struggled to keep herself on the table. Their eyes darted around the room, searching for their opponent.

When the blue dissipated and all that was left was their original shade of red, the scanning equipment powered up with a buzz and a whine and began to circle around their soul, little darting laser lights running crisscross over it. “keep your head down, please.” Alphys warned, just as one of the mechanical arms swerved around and nearly smashed into their nose.

 _“What the hell is this?”_  Chara shrieked.

“Calm down. They are just scanning us.” 

“Looks like everything is in working order. First round of readings are starting to come in." Alphys frowned. "T-that’s odd. Sans, this says she only has 20 HP. Aren’t… aren’t humans supposed to have more than that? She’s really frail…” Alphys shook herself free of the distraction. “Sorry, we can talk about that l-later. Beginning the second round of tests.”

The first set of arms folded back up against the ceiling and another set came down. They were much louder this time, buzzing with magic instead of electricity. Rain could feel some undefined pressure prodding at her soul, causing phantom sensations that were slowly beginning to build into an uncomfortable feeling of slowly being stretched in an undefined direction.

_“I don’t like this.”_

“Oh my god.” Alphys murmured, leaning over a screen and adjusting her glasses.

The stretching sensation grew.

_“I don’t like this!”_

“O-oh my god! S-Sans! Sans come here and look at this!”

“i don’t need to, alph.” His voice was soft and grim. “i can see it from here.”

Rain’s hands gripped at the unused straps, grinding her teeth as Chara began to fight her, a boiling sea of panic trapped inside her head. “H-hey, guys?” She grunted through her teeth,“Whatever the hell you are doing, it woke Chara up and she _really_ doesn’t like it!”

“This is incredible. I have never seen anything like it. Do you think it’s because the soul is s-still attached to a body?”

“don’t think so, al.” Sans said, the words a mere whisper between his teeth.

Alphys continued to whisper surprised remarks as the readings came in. “H-her body is under so much stress! I-I would have thought it would be fatal by now! But her healing is… wait, if she can survive like this because her soul keeps restoring everything then does that mean-”

“Alphys?” Rain’s whole body was trembling, her leg kicked the air against her will, narrowly missing one of the mechanical appendages. “Are you almost done?” She shouted.

“shut it down, al.”

“I-I’m almost done. I just have a few more scans that need to come in.”

Rain tried to keep her eyes screwed shut, forcing down the black cloud or growing anxiety and anger but it was too much. Their eyes flew open and Rain felt her awareness falling backwards. They looked down at their soul. The veins of dark red that had always been entwined with the lighter shades of their soul had begun to pool together off to the side, beginning to bulge like a blister, losing its red coloration in favor of a familiar, oily black.

“Wait, hold on a moment.” Alphys’s claws rattled across a keyboard. “Look at this! Look what her soul is doing! I-I have never seen a reaction like this before! Usually we just keep this field in place to keep the souls separated when scanning more than one at a same time but-”

An enraged, pained scream burned through their throat until it was raw.

Alphys ducked in surprise.

Sans took a step back. “Shut it down, Alphys! Now!” 

Chara kicked aside the nearest arm, grabbing on to another that had a much sharper appendage and yanking it from the ceiling in a maddened frenzy, showering the room with sparks.

Every movement was agony. The machine had been designed to keep her soul in place during the scan but her body had other plans. Her _soul_ had other plans. It did not fit into this mold. It did not align with the specifications the machine had been given.

 **It was** **not safe**.

The second the machine switched off Chara was a loose beast.

Sans’s eye was blue again, his hand outstretched as a panicked and enraged Chara launched herself from the table. She ignored the damage the other arms inflicted upon her and she turned her bulging, maddened eyes upon the small scientist; the glint of murderous intent flashed across her face.

As she jumped off the table, twisted metal in hand, their misshapen soul pulsed blue again and they stopped in midair as suddenly as if they had hit a wall.

They hung there, drifting.

“hey!” Sans barked, his voice louder than anyone could ever recall hearing. “drop it. and let her go.”

Chara cackled at him. “Oh, so _now_ you talk to us like we are two different people? _Now_ you believe her? Took you long enough!” She threw the mechanical arm at him. It was too heavy for her to throw very far.

He glared at it as it skidded past him in a shower of sparks and shrapnel. A single bead of sweat rolled down his temple. “good girl.” He lowered her to the floor. Her limbs strained against the impossible weight he pressed against her soul. Chara clawed at the ground, struggling to keep advancing. After several tense seconds her body gave in and folded under her like paper. Sans nodded his satisfaction. “now: let. her. go.”

Chara struggled and hissed for several seconds. Something inside of her had snapped. Foam coated the corners of her lips as she snarled at anything that moved, spitting out a string of insults. After a few tense, agonizing minute of fruitless struggling, her eyes rolled back into her head and she finally slumped over.

Sans remained tense, the act of keeping her pinned for so long was incredibly draining. “rain, you alright in there?”

For a moment she didn’t answer. Then Rain groaned. The rawness of her throat sent her into a coughing fit.

Sans sighed in relief and slowly lowered his hand, allowing her soul to free itself from the entrapping blue.

Alphys crept out from behind her wall of machinery, fiddling with her hands; her tail wrapped tightly around one leg. She kept taking half steps towards her then moving back, afraid to approach. This was the first time she had seen what Chara was like in this timeline. “I-I’m sorry. I-I’m s-s-so sorry! I got carried away. Oh god, I got carried away. I-I didn’t realize- I didn’t know that...”

“hey, why don’t you go uh, get her something to drink, ok? i’ll handle this.” Sans suggested, giving Alphys a way to go calm down.

“Right. O-ok. I’ll be right back.” She rushed off into the other room where there was a water cooler.

Sans crouched down so he was on Rain’s level. Granted, he remained several feet away from her while doing so. “hey, that looked pretty rough. you ok?”

She slowly eased herself up off the floor and into a sitting position, wincing. “Yeah. I’m good. I’m ok now.” She whispered, her voice like gravel and her shoulders shaking with another cough. She looked down at her chest, surprised to find that her soul was still visible. “Why is it still out?”

“the machine is designed to draw out certain aspects of the soul for analysis. it will take a moment for it to settle back down so your body can absorb it again.”

Rain frowned at her soul, the swirling darkness attached to its side looked like an angry tumor. She reached out to prod it before Sans could warn her against it. “And what the hell is thhhhhi-!”  She felt a phantom jab in her side, causing her back to arc and her mussels and eye to twitch uncontrollably.

“Stop that!” Chara snapped, gaining temporary control of their voice. “Stop poking us!”

Rain’s body tried to cringe away from their soul as her voice went back to normal. “Oh my god, is that her?” She pointed at the darkness. “Is that actually _her_?”

Chara took this as an indication that she was going to poke them again and beat her to the punch, causing Rain’s other hand to fly up and roughly jab at the red of Rain’s soul instead.  She shrieked and cringed away. " _Not so fun when it’s you, is it?”_ Chara snapped.

“hate to interrupt your, uh, _soul searching_ \- you two really seem to be having a proper _heart-to-heart_ interaction right now- but you should probably stop doing that. as the magical and ethereal culmination of your very being, souls don’t react well to non-magical stimulation or interaction. in short, you are going to hurt yourself if you keep poking it.”

They both relented, rubbing at their face and muttering a curse while their soul slowly began to fade back into obscurity.

Today had been a weird day.

Alphys returned with the promised water as well as the entire box of doughnuts Rain had been offered before. Now that both Rain and Chara seemed to have calmed down, Alphys felt safe enough to approach them. Rain took the water gratefully, allowing Alphys to help her up onto her still-wobbly legs. “H-here. It looks like you really scratched up your arm.” She whispered, offering the box of doughnuts.

Rain looked down at her left arm, finding a long bloody cut staining her torn sleeve. She hadn’t even felt it. “Dammit. I just can’t seem to keep my clothes in one piece anymore.”

“Why do you think i was so eager to get my coat back?” Sans teased, trying to make light of the grim situation.

Rain dropped the now empty paper cup and took a literal fistful of doughnuts. She was suddenly very hungry. And cold. She was very cold. Shivering.

Alphys gave Sans a displeased look over his joke before turning her attention back to Rain. “Again, Rain, I am so, _so_ sorry. I-I wasn’t expecting that v-violent of a reaction. Th-the machine kept registering t-two souls and it wanted to keep them apart during the scanning processes. I-it’s a very minor mechanism, j-ju-just a small energy current, not even a real shield! I-I didn’t think it would be powerful enough to hurt you. W-we don’t have anywhere _near_ enough power to separate a soul from _anything_ but I guess… I guess the prodding was enough to agitate it…her.”

“It’s ok, Alphys.” She took a deep breath to steady herself. “I’m not mad.” She looked over her shoulder at Sans. “It sounds like you guys finally believe me now, so I guess it was worth it.” She rolled her shoulders and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. Chara’s chill was returning after having been temporarily drawn to the surface by the machine. “So, what did you find?”

 “Aside from that sentient p-parasite fused to your soul?” Alphys laughed nervously and helped ease Rain into the nearest chair. “A lot. A-at first I thought there was something wrong with the machine! Your Determination levels…”

Chara sighed and rolled her eyes. She was slowly calming down now and falling into panic-induced exhaustion. _“Don’t tell me they are off the charts.  We already know they are. Don’t be the cliché person who says ‘off the charts.’”_

“They are off the charts!” 

_“I hate her.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed coming up with all the humor that takes place in this arc. >_>
> 
> Also a big thank you to those who have been commenting! :D I wasn't sure if people were still keeping up with the newest chapters, so thank you! ^_^


	39. It’s Not Your Fault/But I Wish it Was

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~It’s Not Your Fault~~ / **But I Wish it Was**
> 
> Alphys delivers some secret letters.  
> Rain learns why Chara climbed the mountain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for skipping last week! I had to prep the bet big batch of chapters to send to my sister so i don't run out.

Rain had been hurried away back to her little room to rest while Alphys and Sans looked over the wealth of information they had been given. Once they were certain that she was unharmed and not any more of a threat than she usually was, she seemed to become an afterthought abandoned in the shadow of their precious printouts and paper work.

Not that she minded too much. She needed time to try and pull herself back together after that outburst. She felt safer knowing they had Chara boxed in for the most part. The only way out was back through time and neither of them found that to be a pleasant option as of late.

Time passed. Perhaps even a new day started before anyone came to check on her again. She awoke to the sound of Alphys clearing her throat.

“Ppst. H-hey, are you awake?” She whispered.

Rain jerked up from the face-plant she had been doing on the floor and pushed her hair out of the way. “Mhm.”

“Oh. Ok. Good.” She flipped a switch on her side of the wall and the bottom bar of energy shut off. She slid a tray of food and a few slightly water-damaged manga books through the gap. “Here. Thought you might like these.”

Rain scooted over to the door and slid the tray over to her little nest of blankets. Today she got instant noodles and flower tea. Still beats water sausages.“Thanks.” She turned the manga this way and that, inspecting the cover.

“Thought you might like something to read. I-I don’t I think have a lot of um, of real books that would interest you.” She cracked a little smile and laughed. “Un-unless you are interested in building jet engines! But I thought that since you liked Mew Mew maybe..?”

Rain put the book down and smiled. “Thanks. Really, thank you. I will be sure to read these.” She began to eat her ramen.

Alphys didn’t leave.

“Do you…need something?”

“I-I just wanted to make sure you were st-still doing ok.” She looked at the floor. “What happened to you… it looked pretty rough.”

Rain chuckled. “Trust me, I have had way worse. Believe it or not, Funny Bones up there can pack a hell of a punch.”

Alphys frowned, the tips of her teeth poking out of her lips. She did not look convinced.

Rain pressed on. “Sorry if I scared you back there. Chara is not a very reasonable creature to deal with.”

Alphys brightened, genuine excitement making her stand a little taller. “Y-yeah. B-but we learned a lot! I will tell you all about our findings later once it’s all been compiled. I-it should help us figure out how to handle this. I-I-I think there is a real chance we can help you!”

“Great. I look forward to reading it.” She tried to smile but it soon faded. “I, um, I have been stuck like this for a long time. Yet I still don’t understand what’s happened to me.” Her face fell. “ Like, at all.”

She assumed Alphys would make another optimistic promise and leave, now that she had made her social interaction for the day. Yet she remained by the door, picking at the imagined lint on her clothes. She still hadn’t turned that last bar of the energy field back on.

“Is…there something else you wanted to say?”

She began to stutter then fall back into silence before taking a deep breath and stuffing her hands into the inner pockets of her coat. She pulled out several crumpled envelopes, two of them opened. She held them close to her chest and considered them for a moment before sliding them through the gap. “H-here.”

Rain scowled, leaning forward to pick up the closest one.

It was from Papyrus.

“I-I’m sorry. I should have given them to you s-sooner. B-but I didn’t know Sans had told anyone you were down here s-s-so...”

Rain picked up a letter that had already been opened and raised a questioning eyebrow.

“S-sorry! I um, I get a lot of mail and I didn’t think any of it would be addressed to someone other than myself. So I just sort of assumed it was for me without looking at it?”

Rain scanned the large, precise scrawl. It was a daily report about the happenings of Snowdin along with multiple lines of encouragement and questions about how she was doing. “How long has he been sending these?” There were a lot of letters here.

“Um, I don’t know? I don’t actually read through my mail very often anymore and well, um, I-I um, I thought you were really dangerous?” Well, she wasn’t wrong. “S-so I kind of kept them to myself at first because Sans, w-well, I didn’t think he would want you talking to his brother. But now that I know what’s happened to you… well.” She was looking at the floor, voice going soft. “It didn’t seem right, ya know? It-it’s not your fault. We shouldn’t treat you like, um, like _her_. Because you’re not. You seem like a really nice person a-and I feel kind of dirty for hiding these from you.”

Rain watched Alphys for a moment, trying to decide upon her sincerity. Eventually she smiled and began to read through another letter. “Thank you Alphys. This means a lot to me. And don’t beat yourself up. I know that I… well, you were just trying to keep people safe.”

She smiled, relived that she wasn’t mad. “You’re welcome. Just um, maybe don’t mention this to Sans? Just in case Papyrus um, overheard were you were on accident or something. I still don’t know how happy he would be if he found out that I… you know.”

“Got it.”

Alphys switched the gate back to full power and turned to leave but Rain called her back. “Hey, Alphys?”

“Y-yes?”

“Would you send a letter back to him for me? If I wrote one?”

She considered it a moment before nodding. “Yeah. Um, ok. I th-think I could do that for you.”

“Thank you.” She turned her focus back to the small pile of letters. They were precious little tidbits of goofy kindness.

Maybe things really could change for the better if she just tried.

***

There was never a dull moment for Alphys over the next week or so. She and Sans had a million questions about Rain and Chara, and Rain seemed to have her fair share of questions too; all of which required a lot of testing. And all that testing required _a lot_ of modifications to already established machinery and apparatus.

Rain was completely open with them about everything. She truly seemed to want to be helped. And who could blame her? It couldn’t be fun having that thing stuck to her soul. Unfortunately getting her any sort of help and stopping the impending threat to their timeline was pretty damn tricky when there was this much Determination involved.

Unfortunately the stress that such a threat implied was just another stone weighing Alphys down at night.

Despite the initial impressions Alphys had upon seeing such a weary looking creature, Rain was obviously a very Determined individual. The most Determined living human the Underground had ever seen.

But the other, well, she hesitated to call it a soul, but the other _thing_ was pretty Determined too. It seemed to be a mixture of pure Determination, memory imprints, and vile, negative emotions. Alphys could tell it had once been like all the other souls she had seen. The readings, the shape and its overall existence still maintained the outlines of a human soul. But all those things had become disfigured. Deformed by its own vile nature. Rotted away.

The rot was effecting Rain’s soul now too, although she was fighting it.

 It was incredibly sad to see.

Rain called the soul a demon. Perhaps that was an accurate term for it. Humans believed demons to be corrupted human spirits or something, right? There were history books that spoke of how human souls could exist even if they were devoid of kindness and love. There were even stories of what those individuals had been like. Angry, violent, craving power; always seeking something but never finding satisfaction. Cold.

But no one had ever seen what that looked like on the inside.

 Alphys now knew what just such a soul was like. A human soul devoid of its positive emotions was far more dangerous than a regular human soul. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was simply more destructive in its nature. In the end she could only say this soul was still human in the same way she could say that a butterfly was still a caterpillar.

Since they didn’t have the power or technology necessary to simply rip the two souls apart-which she was secretly grateful for since doing so would probably destroy both souls at this point and she didn’t want to be the one to do that- they were looking into other ways to try and fix this mess.

She wanted to try and find a way to help them. Either by restoring the demon soul to a more peaceful, emotive state or by at least weakening it to a point where it could no longer be a threat.

So far the results had not been encouraging but at least  they were informative. For the first time in, well, _ever_ , Alphys was excited to come in to work. The Human’s presence remained a secret for obvious reasons so none of the work she was doing was technically “official” but she was still glad to be making progress in _something_ again. She was glad that what she was doing had the potential to actually help people for once instead of just fusing all their problems together into one hellish, goopy mess.

…Oh god.

Anyway, since the initial slip-up during the first round of scans, she had been much more careful about how she handled things between the two souls. Of course there were still some days when things got a little loud.

And scary.

And for the poor human probably…painful.

She felt horrible on those days. But Rain was never mad. She always smiled at the end. It was a tired smile. A smile all three of them seemed to know how to feign pretty well. Yet the fact still stood that no matter how messed up some of those tests seemed to render her despite their precautions, the human was never angry with them over it.

She always thanked them and often assured Alphys that she had done nothing wrong. She _swore_ the machines weren’t hurting her; it was just one of those _bad days_ where Chara was trying to manipulate the situation and their pity.

So far their findings were rule breaking, wall-shattering and history-making. Alphys was also learning an unsettling amount of facts about the nature of time, which felt kind of odd to be honest because it felt like she was being reminded of things she had already learned instead of researching an entirely new field. She had a nagging feeling that Sans knew why that was but he avoided her when she tried to talk about it.

She didn’t appreciate him keeping secrets of this magnitude; not when things were as serious as they were. Yet he had never betrayed any of her many, _many_ scummy secrets. Not even now, when it was an inconvenience to them both. So she felt she had no right to pry.

Speaking of that tight lipped skeleton, he was late. Again. She checked her watched and sighed, wiping her nervous, sweaty hands on the hem of her lab coat. He had said he would be here around noon. It was twelve thirty five. “Come on Sans. I know you like your naps but this is kind of more important than slacking off at your station!”

There was a brief moment of static and then, “i agree. that’s why i figured i would pick us up some grub on the way over. can’t save the underground on an empty stomach.”

Alphys nearly jumped out of her scales, hands flying up to her mouth to try and cover her surprised squeak. “Sans!” She yelped, hurrying to adjust her disheveled glasses. “D-don’t do that! You know h-how nervous I get down here!” She chided. “A-a-and you’re late!”

“hey now, don’t give me that look. i’d like to think that instead of being late to this meeting, i’m just really early for our _next_ one.”

Alphys gave him a deadpan look that let him know she was not buying it. She let her hands hang uselessly at her sides, shoulders slumped and tail drooping flat against the floor. “Really Sans? Really?”

He shrugged helplessly and offered up a bag of takeout from Grillby’s. “sorry. it’s kinda hard to keep sneaking off like this. Papyrus is taking notice of my unusual levels of activity-”

She tried to hide her sudden guilt. “W-wait, Papyrus doesn’t know about Rain?” She interrupted.

He frowned. “of course not.”

Oh dear.

“not that he didn’t try to figure it out on his own. everyone is looking for her to be honest. and since undyne is back on her feet now, tori has been staying with us and she’s, well, more observant than most.” He scowled to himself. “she’s _really_ adamant about finding her lost human.”

Alphys’s heart stopped for a second. “Y-you don’t think- she doesn’t know about- d-do you think the queen may end up c-coming _here_?” If it was possible for Alphys to melt into the floor and disappear, she was half way to achieving it.

No one knew exactly how to treat Toriel at the moment. She was royalty and as far as they knew there had never been an official, legal break-off between her and Asgore. She had just up and ditched her subjects and all matters of responsibility to go hide in the Ruins for several years. She hadn’t even mentioned returning to the castle now that she was back. She was staying with Sans and Papyrus instead, so no one really knew just how much power she had over everyone.

Regardless, the thought of the queen storming in and seeing the dark underbelly of the lab and all of the hidden screw-ups she had created, was enough to send Alphys into a mild panic attack.

Sans waved away the question and fished out a box of fries for her from the bag of takeout, trying to distract her form her self-inflicted turmoil. “nah. no one knows i’m the one who took her. they were all too busy trying to keep undyne pinned down in the other room to notice when i snuck her out of there. i got back before anyone came out of the room so all i had to do was fall asleep in an amusing spot and wait to be found.

“they think the human snuck out on her own while i was napping.” His stagnant smile spread into a grin and the bottom ridge of his eye sockets perked up in a smug sort of way. “last soul needed to free the underground and everyone just accepts that i slacked off and lost her. sometimes it pays to be the comic relief.”

Alphys cracked a sad, sweet smile and accepted the fries. “Y-you are more than just the comic relief, Sans. You are smart. And loyal. You are a good friend.”

“didn’t say i wasn’t.”

“a-and when we fix this, everyone will know you weren’t really slacking!”

He cocked a finger gun at her. “hey now, is that a threat?”

She giggled, snorting a little. “Sans! Come on! Y-you have been putting a surprising amount of effort into all this. I haven’t seen you work l-like this in years.”

“work?” He scoffed. “i’m just reading the notes and clarifying what you didn’t already know. if reading was work i’d get paid for my bed time stories. who’s to say i’m not just sticking around because i’m a huge dork who likes science?” His eyes slid off to the side while he opened his own box of food and began to pick a it. “besides, i had to find something interesting to do to help fill the void after undyne got to me. Papyrus wouldn’t let me just stay home and _bonedoggle_ all day. ”

Alphys furrowed her brow while nibbling on some fries. “What?”

His eyes darted away a few times and he rubbed a hand over the crack in his skull, his hand eventually sliding back to rub at his neck. “well, undyne wasn’t exactly _thrilled_ with me letting the saving grace of monster kind run out of her house like that- or the fact that i sort of let the human _and_ the queen slide past all my sentry stations up to that point without noticing. undyne was my boss for like, half the jobs i worked.” He popped a stray fry in his mouth. “and now she’s my boss for only a third of em.”

“Oh!” Alphys gasped, “S-she fired you? S-Sans, I’m so sorry!” She whipped out her phone, thumbs flying across the buttons. “I will talk to her.”

“don’t. s’fine. i still got the mtt gig and she let me keep the snowdin spot, even though i did just let a human and the queen walk right past it. she knows Papyrus will be like a dog with a bone with that position opening if she kicks me off of it and i think by this point neither one of us want him there if something else walks through that door. also managed to convince her to let me keep my prime hotdog selling spot, so it’s all good.”

Alphys cocked her brow. “isn’t um, isn’t that one sort of…illegal?”

“sort of. but the king likes my ‘dogs and undyne doesn’t want to ruin that for the big guy. which is good, because after that last puzzle safety law was passed its now way easier to get away with a cheeky little  food cart than it is to explain why you are in possession of a bunch of bullet proof shop shields if you don’t have anything to sell.”

“What do you need those magical barriers for anyway?”

“oh you know, this and that.”

She narrowed her eyes but let it go. “So… _have_ you seen Asgore lately? At your hotdog station I mean.” She was finishing off the last of her fries now, wiping her hands on her coat and turning to look over her checklist before they went to go get Rain. “H-he hasn’t come by the lab in a while. And it’s been days since he answered my last email.”

“nah. pretty sure he won’t be leaving his castle for a while. You know how he gets when a human falls.”

“Yeah. Guess you are right.” Good. At least that was one thing they didn’t have to worry about. “Well,” she handed him her set of notes, “This is what I have so far. Anything you want to add to it? It all checks out on my end.”

He set down his sandwich on a nearby desk and glanced over the notes. “looks good. let’s give it a shot.”

Alphys took a deep breath. She had been hoping he would take more time to run through the note than that. Suddenly she was wishing he had been even later to their meeting than he had was right now.

She cast a reverent look at the skull-like machine looming above them. It always left her feeling both humbled and uneasy. She had built it from the blueprints that she had found abandoned in the lab upon her arrival. Asgore had praised her for her work in assembling such a complex contraption after filling in the many gaps in the half finished schematics but in the end she felt like all she had built was a shrine for the scientist who had come before her. It was a sobering reminder that her offerings were small compared to the previous occupant’s contributions.

Funny how their name always managed to escape her. Yet she felt nothing but a respect for the previous scientist. Well, that and a little bit of intimidation. Big shoes to fill.

“what’s a’ matter?”

Alphys looked around the room, chewing her lip. “I-I think I should go check on everyone before we bring her down here. J-just in case.” She was dry washing her hands again.

Sans’s smile slipped into something a little more serious and the hand holding the offered notes slumped to his side.“alph, i don’t think she would judge you if she knew. a person like that would have no right to. i’m still not convinced she doesn’t already know. someone like her…well, all secrets yield to time and she’s had more than her fair share of that to mess around with.”

Alphys grew quiet. “If-if she saw what ha-happened to the last group of people w-who tr-trusted me, I-I don’t think she would trust us anymore.”

It wasn’t the answer Sans had hoped for but it was the one he had been expecting. “alright.” He sighed, defeated. “it’s your call.” He had long since given up on the whole amalgamate deal. It was all foggy of course but he knew he had helped her fix things and come clean in the past. His inclination that the other monsters would forgive her went beyond gut feelings and into the realm of de ja vu. In order for that to happen he must have gone through the motions many, many times before. Eventually he had had to ask himself: what was the point? If the world reset it was all for nothing.

Now he simply helped her keep her secret. He kept the dogs fed and his ideas to himself. If time ever got out of this rut she would eventually have to come clean on her own anyway, right?

Not that he had much faith in time ever progressing normally again.

Sure, this cycle was new. It was different enough to allow him to indulge his curiosity. It was nice knowing what the anomaly was and as long as she didn’t hurt too many people, he was willing to let Rain do her thing. But he didn’t expect this lull to last. He had seen the reports. He knew it didn’t. Dark, darker yet darker. Who was he fooling to have imagined there was hope?

“Ok.” Alphys sighed, smoothing out the wrinkles in her clothes and bringing them both back to the present. “I will go make sure everyone is where they should be. Y-you can go let Rain know we are ready to start.”

“ok.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and took a step forward, foot hanging in the air as the hiss of static curled in around him and whisked him away.

***

_It was an unusually chilly night in the mountains. There was no cloud cover overhead, giving the world an unobstructed view of the countless glimmering stars above while a cold wind made the house creak._

_Her parents had fallen asleep early after an argument tonight. They were locked away in their room now, passed out drunk._

_Chara bounced her baby brother up and down, pleading in a whisper for him not to cry. If their parents woke up they would be angry. He continued to fuss, always on the verge of crying. She had warmed up a bottle of milk for him and was only now  getting him to drink._

_When he finally began to show signs of sleep she lowered him into his play pen, not daring to put him in the crib since it was in her mom and dad’s room. She offered him his favorite stuffed animal and gave up her best blanket to keep him warm.“There you go, you little runt.” She murmured, torn between fondness and annoyance._

_She wrapped herself up in their second best blanket and wandered over to the kitchen. There would be no dinner tonight. She wrinkled her nose at the option of stale bagels, the standard meal of choice since her parents often neglected going to the store, and instead crept into the pantry. She had been saving a box of macaroni and cheese for just such an event as this._

_She poured in the water and noodles and set things to boil. She wandered around a bit while she waited for things to heat up, playing with the idea of booting up the computer to resume the secretive Pokémon marathon she had been indulging in at night but quickly shot down the idea just in case her brother started to cry and woke someone up. Her parents hated Pokémon._

_Instead she huddled up on the couch next to her brother’s playpen._

_Her tired eyes drooped. She didn’t move, trying her best to soak up the warmth of the blanket. It had been a long and stressful day for her._

_She closed her eyes for a moment..._

_Sleep took her unaware._

_Her pot began to boil, the stove’s red glow reflecting off of discarded wrappers and old hamburger helper boxes that had been left scattered across the counter for well over a week. As Chara slept, the edges of the nearest pile of clutter began to darken, having been left too close to the stove._

_She did not wake up until the hungry tongues of flame had chewed through the empty boxes and had managed to spread out onto one of the nearby piles of junk mail and discarded napkins further along the counter. By now the greedy flames were reaching out to ensnare larger prey: the wooden cupboards up above. Like most of the other inner workings of the house, their last working fire alarm had died a long time ago and had never been replaced out of pure negligence._

_She opened her eyes to angry flames chewing away at the kitchen, smoke choking the air. Chara’s eyes widened in terror as she rushed off into the garage to try and find their only fire extinguisher. She pushed aside several boxes of junk and searched under all of the old tables and broken chairs that clogged the garage like grease in an artery._

_Where was it? It had to be here somewhere! Why did her parents hoard so much junk!_

_She could hear her brother starting to cry back in the main room._

_Baby clothes, old knitting material, flattened boxes and Christmas lights. Empty cans of paint and beer, kick-knacks and broken toys- She pushed aside everything but found nothing._

_Back in the kitchen the flames were growing._

_She had to fix this. **She had to fix this!** Her dad always accused her of being too young to use the stove! She had been so tired. She had only wanted to close her eyes for a second- she was always so careful!_

_They would never forgive her for this. They would **kill** her!_

_She knew she should wake them up. Maybe they could help. But their anger scared her more than the growing flames that continued to consume the piles of trash left lying about in the neglected house. Her mind was a muddled mess. This was her fault. **They would say it was her fault!** But maybe she could still fix things somehow before they woke up._

_Maybe she could use the spray nozzle from the sink? Dammit, why hadn’t she tried using that first!_

_She reemerged from the garage and the heat hit her like a wall. The smoke clawed at her mouth and nose while somewhere off to the side her brother continued to cry in the haze. The kitchen was a lost cause, its heat burning her face and the flames reaching out to embrace her as soon as the door opened. The flames had reached the ceiling._

_She stumbled away, retrieving her brother from his crib and bolting out into the cold, star-filled night. She tried to hush her brother’s wailing as she coughed; doubling over onto the grass. She tried to catch her breath but her throat felt raw. She was dizzy and lightheaded.The world spun and grew dark._

_The next thing she remembered she was laying in the grass, unable to tell if seconds or minute had passed by while her eyes had been closed. Her brother was wailing in her ear._

_She turned back to the house. The flames were licking at some of the windows now and smoke was seeping out of the back yard._

_She set her brother down and pushed herself up on shaky knees and ran around back to knock on her Parent’s window, coughing as she staggered towards their room. She could see the light of the fire dancing under their door, chewing its way through boxes and furniture with a selfish sort of hunger. The room was a haze of thick smoke._

_She continued to bang on the glass, struggling to push open the window with her slender arms while she cried out in a cracked voice for her parents, but the window couldn’t open more than an inch or two on its rusted track._

_She screamed their names, tears blurring her vision._

_They didn’t get up._

_She fell back in horror, mind trying to grasp at how fast the situation had spun out of control. Were they already dead? If they weren’t, they were going to die soon. What could she do? Their phone was still inside the house and their neighbor’s house was a ten minute walk from here! Even if she could withstand the thickening curtain of smoke_ and _get the window open, her dad couldn’t climb out this window! It was too small!_

_And they would be so mad._

_They would be so, so mad…_

_They would hate her forever for this..._

_She ran._

_She picked up her brother, carrying him away from the growing flames as he cried. She refused to look back at the house, even as its orange light danced against her burned cheeks._

_This was her fault. She hadn’t meant for this to happen but everyone always told her she was still her fault when things went wrong._

**_This was her fault._ **

_She had killed them. She had left them to die. She had killed her own parents!_

_The tears continued to prick at her eyes but she struggled to keep them from falling. She made a strangled sound of distress and buried her face against the blanket her brother was wrapped in._

_“I’m a murderer.” She sobbed._

_They would blame her for this. everyone in town would blame her for this. Maybe she should have stayed in the house since she was going to burn in hell for letting this happen to her own family anyway._

_Would the police arrest her? Would she be thrown in jail? She was just a kid, but that had never stopped her from being punished before._

_For a brief moment her adrenaline-fueled panic caused her world to spin with fear. She was too young to understand that her fears were unjustified. She was too scared to understand she had committed no crime._

_As she ran towards her neighbor’s house in a hopeless attempt to get help, her thoughts hardened into a sense of grim resolve._

_She knocked on the door._

_An elderly balding man answered the door, his mouth falling open when he saw her soot smudged face. he could smell the smoke on her clothes._

_She stared at him for a moment while she struggled to find the courage to talk. “Our house is burning.” She croaked, trying to keep her voice level. In the end the news came out sounding deadpan._

_Her neighbor got on the phone and called for help. He asked her a few questions then told her to stay where she was while rushed outside to see if there was anything he could do._

_Chara took a long drink of water to sooth her throat once he was gone. She set her brother down in the makeshift pen their neighbor had set up for him before he had dashed out into the night._

_She looked down at her baby brother, who continued to cry but looked to be unharmed. “I’m going to have to go away now.” She told him, stroking his head. She didn’t smile, she didn’t cry. She almost felt completely empty. She didn’t even feel grief for her loss now. She just felt hollow. Hollow, disgusted and afraid of being punished. “It’s better if I don’t see you again…Sorry.” She whispered, not sure what else there was to say._

_She slipped back out into the night and ran. She would head for Ebott. No one ever went there because their superstitions made them too frightened to go near the place unless they had to. It would be a good place to hide._

_She vaguely wondered if there really were monsters living on the mountain. Or demons, as some of her classmates claimed. Perhaps they would have a place among them for a fellow sinner to hide._

***

Rain woke up in a fit of terror, coughing as tears ran down her face. She shielded her eyes from the phantom flames and cried out to the darkness in fear and confusion, momentarily forgetting who and where she was.

As the memory began to recede she was left wondering which one of them was the one still crying.

Was it her? Or was it Chara?

She held herself, sniffing softly and rocking back and forth in the empty darkness until she could calm down. Chara regained her composure first and began to retreat.

“Chara.” Rain whispered, reaching out to the darkness as if she could actually touch the troubled child. “Chara, wait. It was not your fault.” She pleaded, using her sleeve to wipe away the tears. “Chara please, you have to forgive yourself for this. You did nothing wrong. The fire... it was an accident.”

Chara’s voice was as cold as winter’s chill when she finally bothered to answer her. _“I don’t want to talk about it.”_

“I know you don’t. But if you ever do, if you ever change your mind, I will be here to listen.” She took a deep breath. “You didn’t really kill them.”

Chara seemed to pause for a moment in consideration. When next she spoke her voice was calm again and shrouded in a thick coat of fog. “ _I know."_ She sighed, _"It took me a long time to understand that, but I know._ _And you know what else I realized over the years?”_ Chara's presence shifted. Rain got the feeling that she was staring off into the unfocused distance now. _“If I had the chance to go back and save them, I wouldn’t. It’s funny but when I finally learned I wasn’t responsible for their demise I felt…cheated. Jealous even.”_ Rain felt her chest growing colder. It felt like a constricting layer of ice settling in over a pond. _“And If I could go back and do it all again? I would kill them myself.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If this chapter showed up late i'm sorry. AO3 is having issues with posting today. =__=


	40. Lorem Ipsum Docet/ It Teaches Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~Lorem Ipsum Docet~~ / **It Teaches Pain**
> 
> Its time for an extraction.

She heard a soft ding and the swoosh of the elevator doors opening. The unexpected noise disrupted the silence and made her eyes flutter open.

She was learning to recognize the soft swish and tap of Sans’s slippers. He never seemed to bother to wear anything else when she saw him. Hell, half the time she saw him he was still wearing that blue coat of his even though they were sitting on an island in a lake of magma. Even as a skeleton she got the impression that this wasn’t completely normal.

She sighed. She couldn’t have been asleep for more than fifteen minutes. All that nap had done was make her feel even more worn out and on edge than usual.

She stared up at the ceiling. Chara was still asleep. No doubt dreaming of her climb up the mountain now. Poor thing. It hadn’t been her fault. She hadn’t been a bad kid, once upon a time. Not that she would listen to Rain if she tried to tell her that. She continued to attempt to reach her but Chara attacked her if she tried.

Rain waited until Sans had stopped near her door before she spoke. Her eyes remained fixated on the little dog-shaped splotch above her bed. She had decided it kind of looked like the dog was trying to make something out of a star-shaped splotch off to the side. What was the dog creating? “Is it time for another field trip?”

“yeah. how’s it goin?”

She was starting to hate it here. They kept having to strap her down during tests and Sans always had to be on standby so he could pin her if things got out of hand. “She’s sleeping. Sleeps most of the day now.” Which was good. When she was awake she was a nightmare. Rain was struggling to keep her in check when all she had worth fighting for right now was the continued monotony of her cell. Conversations with either of her two guardians were rare and distant, held over the mic for the same reason the room remained so empty: safety. She was dangerous. Toxic. Borderline feral. She understood this and did not blame them for these precautions but that did not make it any easier to stomach.

There was little indication of the passage of time down here. The hallway lights shut off when Alphys went to bed but their power supply seemed shoddy so sometimes they would turn back on again. Or off, leaving her in the dark for a long, long time before anyone noticed.

She hated that darkness. It did not feel entirely empty. Sometimes it was so quiet it was unnerving.

Sometimes she swore she heard things disrupt that silence.

Chara didn’t like it either so she slept through it. Rain did too, when she could.

Her salvation from the boredom came in the form of Papyrus’s letters. They were worth their weight in gold down here. Which was saying something because he would send her several pages worth of conversation each day. It was nice to have someone to talk to. Even if it was a long distance secret that only managed to chip away at few minutes of each day.

 It had been a while since she had gotten a new letter now though. She assumed that was because lately Alphys and Sans had been busy working on their next project and Alphys didn’t feel comfortable giving her mail when Sans was around.

“you commin?”

She turned her head to the side. Sans had shut down the energy field and was frowning at her, perhaps looking a little concerned. She couldn’t be sure though. Even after they had solid proof that she had been telling the truth, he remained distant.

“Yeah. Sorry. Just thinking.” She peeled herself away from the blankets and rolled out of bed. She smoothed out her clothes and snatched up a nearby scrunchie so she could twist her hair into a ponytail. “Just a little out of it right now. Been a while since I have gotten any sleep.” She had been avoiding nightmares. There was no shortage of material for night terrors floating around in her head now.

sans led her down the hall, her bare feet tapping along out of rhythm with his own footsteps. “how long has it been since you slept?”

She had to think for a moment, recalling various tests she had been called out for recently. “Remember the series of tests where I fell asleep on the table? The one where you mentioned Toriel staying with you? How long ago was that?”

He cringed a little. “getting close to three days, bud.”

She straightened herself as they stepped into the elevator, keeping her chin high and her voice matter-of-fact. “Then it has been three days.”

He didn’t seem to like the sound of that. “maybe we should put a pin in this one then. wait until you are more alert.”

“I’d rather not waste time.” She glanced down at him from out of the corner of her eye. “I’m always tired Sans.  I’m sure you know the feeling. I can’t just grind to a halt now. Not when I’m finally making progress.”

“guess you could say we  got a _skele-ton_ of work to do then, huh? guess sometimes you just gotta work yourself down to the _bone_ to get things done.” He chuckled to himself and Rain rolled her eyes, lip twitching in acknowledgement of the pun but not finding it particularly amusing. Her eyes began to stay up to the crack in his skull as the silence began to grow.

He cleared his throat. “you’re uh, your staring at it again.”

“I thought Toriel would have healed it for you by now.”

“believe me kid, she took a _crack_ at it. wore herself out and slept all afternoon. didn’t change a damn thing.”

Rain was torn between observing the crack and observing the changing numbers on the elevator dial. They were going down farther than usual today.

“seems it’s just the trend now, y’know? phantom scars are all the rage.” He gave her a sly wink. “and you know me: i’m a trendy guy.”

She looked down at his faded pink slippers. “Clearly.” The elevator slowed and the door finally opened, spitting them out on the bottom floor. The air was uncomfortably warm. “I don’t get it. My scars are different from yours. Most of them come from this timeline. I got hurt and didn’t reset. Things didn’t heal right for one reason or the other. And the special ones that jumped through time? I got those by touching the cracks. So how did you get yours?”

He cocked his brow. “Cracks?”

“The darkness I go through to reset time.” She pursed her lips, mood rather cagey at the thought of the place. Yet his silence continued to prod at her. She hated silence. She had had enough silence in that room of hers. “It’s sort of like that thing you teleport through but… bigger. Different in some ways. When you teleport it’s like taking a secret passage way between spaces. When I reset, it’s like I’m stuck In the walls between reality or-”

“a membrane. between timelines. between possibilities.”

She shrugged. She had never considered thinking of it like that. The Dark was just The Dark. Her mind grasped for a better description but it evaded her. The Dark was just the Dark until suddenly it _wasn’t_.  Until suddenly she woke up and she was alive again.

…The Dark was just… _The Dark_.

And the darkness kept getting darker.

“When Chara started to spam true resets to make sure everyone’s memory was completely wiped, I started seeing cracks in it. Spots that were a deeper black than before.”

“was that all you saw in there? just the cracks?”

 Was she imagining things or did his voice sound unusually tense?  She scratched her head and tugged at her ponytail. She stopped in the hallway to think. Sans let her. “Just more cracks inside the cracks I guess. I didn’t like to go near them. Direction is kind of weird and weightless in there but it always felt like I was standing over a deep hole. I didn’t like it. Sometimes it felt like they were looking at me.”

He tilted his head a little. “were they?”

She opened her mouth then stopped. Her first thought had been to say yes. But that was not right. It couldn’t be right. The darkness was empty except for her. She rubbed at her arms and hummed with unease. “When I killed myself for the first time,” She saw the edges of his smile falter and she looked away. Had she told him that little detail yet? “It was while we were fighting you. She wanted to go back and try again but I wouldn’t let her. We fought for control in the dark for a long time. She wanted to go back. I didn’t. So we got stuck in limbo for a while. Existing in a place like that… it’s bound to mess with your head, right? So yeah, I guess I did start to believe there was something else in there. Something watching me. A color other than black. A face that wasn’t there.”

Sans relaxed, his easygoing mask sliding back in place as he whistled through his teeth. “spooky.”

“Yeah. Spooky.”

They resumed their walk. “anyway, getting back on track to your original question about the scars, i think we have a rough idea about what has been happening. you keep running back and forth along the same point in time, yeah? time doesn’t like things like us excessively traveling in any other direction but forward. i imagine what you are doing ‘s kind of like scribbling back and forth on a napkin with a pen until it tears. you’re stressing the membrane and brushing up against the jagged edges of all those executed timelines you snapped off.

“my guess is that some of your more, er, _synchronized_ habits left echoes that continued to resonate through the void; bordering on becoming fixed points in time. so even if you didn’t hit me in this timeline, the echoes of past timelines are still bouncing around and i am somewhat attuned to my own echoes. so i guess you could say i got hit in the head by a _force of habit_.”

She appreciated him trying to make light of things but all she could manage was a guilty cringe. “You did _not_ just make that joke.”

He cleared his throat and went back to being serious when he realized he was making her squirm. “guess what i’m trying to say is that you must have been pretty committed to giving me this thing.” He tapped the crack. “you were so determined to do harm that time remembered what it shouldn’t have.”

She pursed her lips. She had never wanted to hurt him but she knew he was still having a hard time seeing her as a different entity from the one who had killed him. “So everyone has them.” She concluded at last, her voice a grim drone. It was not a question. Just a gray sort of resignation.

“whoever you killed the most, yeah. i got em, tori has a few, and undyne is all sorts of messed up.” He hesitated for a second. “hey, uh, how _did_ i get this anyway? didn’t get your order right at the ol hotdog stand or somthin?” He rubbed his skull.

Rain winced. Her mouth suddenly felt dry. “Um, I uh, she ambushed you right outside of the Ruins. By that bridge with the cheesy wooden bars. She was really angry and kept resetting over and over again for the- for the fun of it. She would catch you across the chest with a fire poker then she would um, she’d crack your head against something. A tree, usually.”

“oh.” His eye darkened a little but he tried to hide it. “guess that explains the headache when i first saw you by the bridge.”

“You were watching us?”

“‘course i was. guess it’s a good thing i  didn’t go say hello, too. the synchronicity of your fight with undyne caused her scars to rupture and knock her flat on her ass- and she’s tough as nails! hate to think what would have happened if i became aligned with our first meeting.”

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them as they came to a cross section and went right. It took a lot of bravery to make herself ask about what he had skipped over. “Does Papyrus have a scar too?”

His eyes really did go dark this time. His hand paused over the door handle of the room he was about to lead them into. A little glass window allowed the bright lights within to spill out into the hallway, only seeming to emphasize the blackness within his skull instead of lessening it.  “yeah.” he rasped. “just one. He was complaining of neck pain around the same time you came through. he keeps rubbing the same spot and doesn’t even know it. it’s on one of his lower cervical vertebrae.” He chuckled, a deep mirthless sound. The sound of someone who needed to vent without breaking something. He yanked the door open a little harder than he had to. “lucky for us, i doubt he ever put up a fight, right? bet you didn’t have a grudge to settle or a long drawn out fight to force you into doing extra resets with him, did you? bet you just hit him once and walked away in each timeline.”

He pushed his way inside the room, keeping his back to her as he went. She waited for him to move ahead several steps before she followed, mouth sewn up tight.  She gladly let their conversation die.

The room ahead seemed a little more used than the others. It wasn’t as dusty or dim. The lights were still strong and the walls clean enough to make her squint after having stepped out from the dim hallway. Several lockers lined one side of the room and all of Alphys ‘s equipment was pushed up against the opposite wall. Papers, charts, graphs and a wealth of clipboards covered in messy scrawl all but consumed the area. The room held the faint smell of fast food.

A large hole took up most of the floor. Down below she could see the glow of electronics and hear the soft hum, beep and whine of tech ticking away within the walls of the pit. Heavy layers of scaffolding had been laid out across the cavity. Her familiar metal stretcher was in the center of the room, waiting for her above the hole and below the toothless grin of a rather unnerving mechanical monstrosity. 

It was a large skull, somewhat resembling a bird with its mouth on sideways. Several thick black tubes protruded from its back and wove their way into the walls above. The skull was dull red, like dried blood. And despite her efforts to tear herself away from its oddly black sockets, she could not. She once again felt like perhaps she was being watched by one too many sets of eyes.

“Is this yours?” She asked, cringing away from the skull and lingering near the lockers without realizing it.

Sans glanced over his shoulder at the monstrosity but did not look at her. “not really. alphys built this one.”

Were skulls just a trend in the Underground? Between always being followed by Sans and Papyrus, having had far too much experience with the laser skulls in the Judgments Hall, that strange face she refused to believe she saw watching her from the cracks in time, and now _this_ \- she was starting to think monsters just had a skull for damn near every occasion.

“Looks like something you would have had a hand in. Reminds me of those damn dragon skulls you have.”

“they were designed by the same person.”

Before Rain could ask any more questions, Alphys rushed into the room from a different entrance, looking a little disheveled and sweaty. “Ok! Ok I’m here! Sorry that took so long. T-there, um, there was a p-problem with one of the refrigerators in the um, in the b-back.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

Rain scowled in confusion but Sans seemed to know exactly what she was talking about.

Alphys hurried over to the table and started undoing the straps. “D-do you remember what we will be d-doing today, Rain?” Rain watched Alphys work. Her hands were shaking. Maybe this place gave the scientist the creeps too.

Rain tucked her own hands in her pant pockets and watched Sans out of the corner of her eye. He was leaning up against the back wall now, pretending to read some papers. She knew he was faking it because she could just make out the little white lights of his eyes watching her while he feigned work. “Extracting Determination, right?” She answered.

“Right! Since the machines seem to register two souls, I think it may be possible to extract Determination from C-Charas soul and not yours. I-it should give you a-an edge over her if we can pull it off.”

Rain stared up at the skull, inching a little closer. It looked like the thing was going to come to life and eat her at any given moment. “Why don’t you just get rid of all of it? Suck out all the Determination at once and call it a day. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this ever again.”

Alphys jumped, head smacking up against a low hanging tube. “T-tha-that would _kill_ you!” When Rain did not immediately retract the suggestion or show any outward hints of shock it only made Alphys all the more nervous. “A-a-and besides! You, um, the, uh, th-the machine has never h-had t-to hold that much Determination before! It would run out of room before we…before you ever…” She  stopped herself and laughed; one hand going up to cover her crooked smile as she shrank away from Rain’s silence. “Never mind. It-it doesn’t matter! I’m s-sure that’s not what you _meant_ to ask. Sorry. It was r-really stupid of me to get so flustered like that.”

Actually that’s exactly what she had meant to ask. She turned away from the scientist. “Its fine.”

“An- anyway, everything should be ready. If you want to hop on the table we can get started. Th-this is going to be new territory for us s-so if anything starts to feel t-too uncomfortable just let me know and w-we will shut it down.”

“You have never extracted Determination from a living thing before, have you?”

“N-no.” Alphys squeaked quietly.

Rain gave her a reassuring smile that felt a little flat thanks to all the shadows under her eyes. “It’s ok, Al. I have probably come back from stuff worse than anything this old skull could throw at me. “ She swung herself up onto the table. “Let’s go. I can feel her starting to wake up a little.”

Those words were all it took for Alphys to fall back and Sans to take her place. While the little scaled scientist scuttled off behind her control panel and started to warm up the machine, Sans appeared at her side without sound or warning and began to strap her down for the ride.

“i’m guessing I don’t really need to tell you that sensory, auditory and visual hallucinations are all going to be a possibility?”

“Sans, please, I have not slept in three days. Just this morning I was watching two rabbits jousting on my bedroom wall.”

“still, things may get pretty intense here.”

She caught something manifested in his eye. Not exactly worry- he knew death was never the end of her; but there was still something there. Something she couldn’t quite place.

“I’ll handle it.” She assured.

“great.” He drummed a hand against the table after making sure everything was secure. Alphys called him away from across the room but Rain snagged him by the sleeve before he could go. He turned to her with a questioning look.

“Why is she so nervous?”

“alphys always has something she thinks she needs to be nervous about.”

“Can I trust her? Like, really trust her? To get the job done?”

“she will do her best, kid.”

Rain chewed on her words for a second in consideration before she decided she may as well spit them out. “Sans, you two know I want you to do whatever it takes to make things safe again, right? I don’t care if it hurts or is unethical. Do whatever needs to be done, ok? and just…be honest with me. Don’t hide anything.”

He seemed surprised to hear this confession. The hard lines of his expression softened a little and some of the earlier hostility melted away. “those are some brave words you’re sayin lady.”

“I’m tired, Sans.”

He gave her hand a pat. “i know pal. i know.” His hand slid away and then he was out of view. “try and get some rest after this one, yeah?”

 She was left to stare at the toothless, sideways maw poised over her; its long, narrow jawline pointing down at her chest.

“Ready when you are!” Alphys called.

“ready?” Sans asked from somewhere off to her side.

“Do it.”

Her body tugged against the creaking straps for a second when Sans pulled her soul up to the surface but the shock was nowhere near as strong as before. This was becoming routine now.

The already humming machine began to all but roar with power. The heat of the many working systems in the pit down below made the air extra warm and a magic based light began to grow inside the skull. The jaws began to lower over her soul, growing longer and narrower in their attempt to reach her. The air tasted like ozone and crackled with energy.

Chara’s awareness flared out in alarm, waking from her secretive dream and breaking into another mild panic. _“Again? You are doing this again?”_ She snapped. _“What is wrong with you? When will you give up and realize that this is your life now? **My** life, now!” _She fought against the restraints but it was no good. Rain grit her teeth and tried to force her back down. It was becoming harder and harder to do as time wore on down here.

Magic began to run down the twisted jaws of the machine, arching like electric currents and slowly forming into strange misshapen teeth; long, sharp and sliding into one another until they became two long K9s. They moved and twisted like anything _but_ real teeth.

They pressed their back against the table, sweat rolling down their forehead. Their heart raced with a shared sense of unease as the magic needles angled down towards them.

_“What is this? What are they doing? What did you let them do?”_

The needle made contact with their soul, the sensation as distinct as an electric shock. Rain yelped, cringing against the discomfort and squeezing her eyes shut. Chara was not so lucky. She screamed inside her head.

“everything ok?” Sans asked.

“Right as Rain.” She grunted, face twisted in a grimace. Ok. This wasn’t so bad. Uncomfortable but not bad.

“Become one of us.”

Rain frowned. “What?”

“I said we are ready to begin the extraction.” Alphys chirped.

“Oh. Ok. Go for it.”

Another static shock. Rain felt a shared sense of pain vibrate through her like she had just been knocked head over heel by a boiling ocean wave.

_“No! No! Stop it! Stop it! It hurts! **Don’t let them take it**!”_

_“We have to be strong.”_ Rain thought, more to herself than Chara.

The teeth of the machine began to glow red, the color growing stronger and stronger with every passing second. The red began to coalesce like condensation, running back up the jaw in little droplets in defiance of gravity. The swirling darkness attached to Rain’s soul writhed and trembled, thrashing against the needle of magic.

_“I will kill them for this. I will kill everyone! Make it stop! It’s mine. It’s mine! **It’s mine**!”_

Rain tried to keep her mouth shut. She could feel it too, distant but still there; the Burning, biting, draining pain. She felt the detached sensation of being sucked dry of her will to do anything. It felt like someone was stacking rocks upon her shoulders and scooping out her chest until she felt both heavy and hollow at the same time.

A voice seemed to echo from the rusted skull. Its words a whisper of static pooled together by the nearby technology. “Lorem ipsum docet” 

There was that feeling again. The feeling of being watched by too many eyes.

 Rain opened her eyes and gasped when she saw a large off-white shape seep from the ceiling. A wad of half-formed, gaping faces dripped down onto the skull and congealed together in a mass like crumpled paper, sliding ever closer in twitchy, jerking motions.

“Uhh, hey guys? You know those hallucinations you warned me about?” The words hurt. Why did they hurt? She had to hiss them out from between her teeth.

Alphys looked up from her panel and gasped. “Sans!” She shouted.

“I’m seeing some _really_ weird shit right now guys!”

“You'll be with us…shortly.” The thing rasped, its dozen or so eyes all fixated on her. The air around it crackled like static as it pressed itself close to the machine and scraped its way towards her on a set of fingernails made of ugly, cracked teeth.

“Where is it? I don’t see it!” Sans’s voice was tense. Rain could see him moving around the perimeter of the pit, blue coat just visible out of the corner of her eye.

Both Chara and Rain began to press their back against the table, panic pricking at their mind. “I don’t like this!”

“Sans, it’s on the skull!”

“shit. i see it!”

“I’m shutting it down!”

“Don’t let it get near me!” They shrieked in unison.

“calm down. i got ya.”

“It’s not real. It’s not real.” Rain assured herself, her word sounding more like a plea for the thing to go away.

_“It’s real. **It’s real!”**_ Chara howled.

“Hold still.” It hissed, falling from the machine’s jaws and onto the table as little flecks of blue pulsed across its misshapen wad of a body. The creature shuddered, an unseen force trying to yank it away as it clawed towards her.

“it’s broken up into too many pieces! I can’t get a good grip on it!”

The room was beginning to spin. The pain was growing. Their fear was spinning out of control. She felt her energy draining away. Chara tried to yank control away from Rain, pushing them to the brink of a reload in her bout of desperation. Yet Chara’s Determination had been drained. Rain fought against her, keeping them balanced between the realm of reality and the void, struggle to push her back.

The grinning mass of teeth and bottomless shadowy eyes reach out and touched them, the teeth of its many-faced appendage biting into their skin.

Rain’s mouth opened. The whole room felt her scream but no sound came out. Their soul shuddered, both sides burning with a terrible agony.

She fell into darkness.


	41. The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fall
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Chara dreams of returning..."home."

_Her father squeezed her hand. His bearded face was close enough that she could feel his fur tickle her chin yet everything felt distant. The fevered pain made the world around her feel warped. His deep voice seemed to echo from some unfathomable pit in her mind, “You have to stay Determined! You can't give up! You are the future of humans and monsters.” He pressed his forehead against hers, trying to hold back tears. “Please, wake up. Don’t give up Hope.” He whispered._

_Her parents left the room to go get more medicine. Healing magic was good for closing cuts and healing burns but it did not work as well against poison. Especially when they did not_ realize _that it_ was _poison and not some natural sort of sickness that was afflicting her._

_Asriel lingered at the threshold of the door. She could sense his outline framed by the light outside of their darkened room. He had stayed close, just like he had promised he would._

_It would happen soon, now. She could feel it._

_He inched into the room and held her hand. “Psst. Chara…Please, wake up. I don’t… I don’t like this plan anymore. I-“_

_Chara squeezed his hand, gritting her teeth a little. He jumped in surprise at finding her awake and lucid. “You promised.” She rasped. “You promised you would be there to catch me. You swore you wouldn’t let me go. You don’t doubt my plan, do you?”_

_He lowered his head. To her great surprise and pride he did not seem to be crying. Good. Good he was growing stronger. It made her proud._

_“No, I said… I said I’d never doubt you.” She felt more than saw him smile. “Six, right? We just have to get six.” He squeezed her hand to assure her he was not going to leave her. “And we will do it together, right?”_

_“Together.” She smiled. “We will be the Hyper God.”_

_***_

_It felt so strange. She remembered her body hurting and her awareness falling into the blackness. Then the next thing she knew, she was with Asriel; warm and strong and safe. They were both strong now. She could feel his magic and realized it was her magic now too. It felt incredible._

_Likewise he felt her Determination. A force like fire that at first he flinched away from. But she shielded him from its negative effects and allowed him to bask in its power._

_“Hello? Are you in there?” He asked, clawed hands going up to his face. They both blinked in surprise when they realized that they had grown much taller with their transformation and he was now sporting a twisted set of horns._

_“Yes, I am here, Asriel. Greetings!” She replied in his voice, stretching out their hands and looking at them in awe. They certainly looked older and more intimidating now but not nearly as flashy as Asriel’s silly drawing had predicted them to be. “Guess the Hyper God thing was a bust, huh?”_

_One of their hands played with their horns. “We still look cool though!” Asriel assured, still optimistic._

_They both looked down at the crumpled heap of Chara’s old body. It looked so tiny and frail now; its eyes half open and glazed over, blood leaking from the mouth. She felt a wave of grief flood over Asriel as they picked up her old body and hugged it close to them. “I’m so sorry, Chara. I’m sorry it had to be like this.”_

_“Stop apologizing. I’m right here.” She scolded._

_“I know. It’s just…” He didn’t cry. She wouldn’t let him. “Do you still want to go see those flowers? I can carry you now.”_

_She rested a proverbial hand on his shoulder and took control of their body. “Let’s go.”_

_***_

_She had expected the screams._

_Asriel had not._

_She had expected them to run or accuse him of killing her._

_Asriel had not._

_But what neither of them expected was for the humans to group together and fight them._

_“Please! Stop! I’m not here to hurt you! Chara is fine; she’s in here with me!” He pleaded, voice warped into something deeper than either of them were used to._

_“Demon!”_

_“Evil spirit!”_

_“Monster!”_

_“Get back! In the name of God, get back!”_

_“Chara, Chara they are not listening!” Asriel cried; eyes wide in terror as the humans began to throw things at them._

_“Don’t let them get in our way! Asriel, catch them! We need their souls!” She complained, feeling her Determination burn inside of them, mixing with hate and manifesting itself in flames. Real flames. Bright, hot flames that danced just like they had when she had set her house on fire._

_Asriel was shrinking away in fear; the big crybaby._

_She had to learn how to use magic on the fly but Asriel was a good caster and she felt his own muscle memory helping her along. “Don’t worry, I will protect you.” She assured, a wide arc of fire pushing the angry humans back as they tried to advance upon them. The humans screamed. “See? This is easy!” She threw her head back and laughed, hurling a ball of flame at the church that had housed so much of her misery. “Not so mighty now, are you? Not so easy to hurt me now that I am **strong**!” She turned their gaze to a cowering woman who had once let the other children bully her and outstretched her clawed hand. “May as well start the reaping with **her**.”_

_She pulled the soul from the human’s chest for all the world to see and summoned a torrent of flame to burn away her body._

_“No! No! Chara, stop!” The flames vanished before they reached the woman. Asriel’s presence tackled Chara and they stumbled back in a tangle of confusion. “That’s not how we agreed to do it! We have to ask. We have to get permission. We have to be peaceful! We are ambassadors!”_

_“Peace? They never gave me any peace!” She shrieked. “They never showed me any kindness!”_

_The humans were rallying now. An arrow shot out of the dark and nailed them in the shoulder, making them stagger back even more.They gasped; hand going up to the wound where magic seeped out and turned to dust between their fingers. Asriel’s mind reeled in panic. This was so far flung from the relative safety of his home life._

_Another arrow struck them in the side. A man on the roof with a compact hunting bow was reloading for a third shot. Chara threw a ball of flame at him while Asriel cried his objection._

_Asriel knelt over Chara’s old body, scooping it up again from the bed of flowers they had placed it in and backing out of the town square. Each step was slow and clumsy as he tried to hold back his sibling in her desire to burn down the entire village._

_Hot tears ran down their face as she cried out a list of past traumas for every fireball she managed to free from Asriel’s grasp and throw against the chipped paint of the old town._

_The two of them fought, arguing internally as they were pelted with more and more objects. The pure intent to harm behind each attack caused the blows to hurt far more than Chara had expected._

_“What is wrong with you? Don’t just stand there and take it! **Don’t make me stand here and take it! Not again! Not from them! They don’t deserve pity! No one here deserves your mercy! It’s us or them, Asriel. It’s kill or be killed!** ”_

_Cries of “demon” and “monster” rose up from the rallying mass; shovels, axes and baseball bats swinging at them from all sides while a group of men in the back called for everyone to clear the area so they could take a clear shot._

_Chara cried out in pain and tried to retaliate, snarling and knocking away several attackers. The humans crashed up against the wall of the corner store, where they groaned and did not get up. She tried to scorch the earth around them but once again Asriel blocked her._

_A gunshot split the air like thunder. Asriel shrank away from the unfamiliar sound._

_A bolt of pain tore through their back._

_“Asriel!” She wailed as they doubled over in pain. “Asriel they are killing us! You are letting them kill us!”_

_He braced himself against the nearest wall, liquid magic seeping from their mouth. “We ...we will go back. Its ok, we will go back. We will try again some other time.” He panted._

_Another gunshot. More pain. “Asriel!” She sobbed. “Let me fight them!”_

_“No. No it’s ok.” He was smiling. Why was he smiling? “They are just scared. We will be good. We are ambassadors, remember? We are…good.”_

_They had so much power. So much magic. So much Determination. Yet in this body she only controlled half of it. The other half fought her. She tried to protect them but alone it was not enough. She tried to avenge them but her attempts fell short._

_Another shot. “Asriel please, don’t let me die. I don’t want to die again!” She bawled._

_They ran, magic bleeding into their robes. “I won’t hurt them… I won’t hurt them. It’s ok... It will all be ok.” He assured her, his voice soft and gentle compared to the angry cries that echoed through the night behind them._

_Asriel repeated himself over and over again while she cried out for retribution. He assured her everything would be ok even as they left a trail of dust leading all the way back home. He promised her he wasn’t mad at the humans for being afraid- even as his breath and body shuddered._

_Chara tried to get him to drop her old body so they could move faster but he refused to abandon it._

_She told him she was scared to die but he seemed to be having a hard time hearing her.  
_

_They limped back home, the world around them growing all the more fuzzy with every step. Asriel was fighting back his own steadily growing fear as he tried to make it back. He insisted that once they found their mother everything would be ok. She could heal them. They would be safe._

_Chara knew better._

_Asriel faltered as he tried to drag them into the throne room. Their eyes were wide but blind as they called out for their parents._

_“Mom? Dad?” Chara croaked._

_Silence._

_“Mommy? Daddy!” Asriel wailed into the darkness as his hand slipped from the arm of his father’s throne, passing through it as he began to turn to dust. “Someone, help me!”_

_...But no one came._

_They were alone._

_He began to fall forward, eyes rolling back as time seemed to stretch out into an agonizing eternity. He just needed to close his eyes and rest for a moment…_

_Chara begged him to stay awake as she felt their connection grow distant. She begged him to remember his promise not to leave her as they fell. She screamed as he sighed, the crumpled form of her child-self falling among the flowers of the castle garden as the two siblings collapsed alongside it._

_He let go of her then, her soul slipping through his fingers. They turned to dust as they hit the ground._

_The darkness swallowed her screaming._

***

Sans had long since gotten past the habit of asking “why me” when he realized the logical answer was “ why the hell not?” Life seemed to have its favorite punching bags for no particular reason other than that there was no reason _not_ to have them, so he endured it.

He was starting to think that maybe Rain was a kindred spirit in that sense.  Poor kid was fucked.

Running into a Memoryhead was not a pleasant experience. He should know. He had run into them more than his fair share of times.

He wasn’t really sure what they were anymore. Bad thoughts? Bad memories? Echoes and imprints of things long gone, he supposed. It was something malevolent held together by the DT residue from old experiments. The DT was their glue and the memories their cannibalistic source of energy. They seemed to feed on misery in order to perpetuate their corrupted existence. They were drawn to inner turmoil. They pulled up your deepest, darkest memories and when they had absorbed enough negative energy from them, they split in two.

There were many reasons why both Sans and Alphys were reluctant to ever go down to the lower levels of the lab but Memoryhead was probably one of the most obvious ones.

The bottom levels were full of bad memories.

Poor kid. Judging by the nonstop screams she had been emitting ever since the thing had touched her, she had provided it with one hell of a feast.

Alphys had managed to shut down the machine and Sans had drawn Rain’s attacker away and lost it in the maze of lab levels just as he had done with it so many times before. But the deed had already been done. Rain was trapped reliving bad memories that had been pulled back to the surface. They had to listen to grim snippets of her story between her sobs and screams as they carried her back to her room.

She cried out for names she should have never known. She begged a long-dead child to save her. Her voice dropped frighteningly low with hatred towards a village that Sans had never heard of and wailed in terror over flames only she could see.

She was fighting things that only existed behind her eyes now.

Alphys was a wreck, panicked over what she had let happen. Yet when Sans had tried to convince her it was time to tell Rain the truth she only retreated farther into her own mind.

As of right now Alphys was gone. She was upstairs running through the data, desperate to find proof that this day had not been a total disaster; desperate to hide from her mistake and the prospect of coming clean.

Well if Alphys wanted to keep her damn secret then he would let her keep it! But he would stop Rain from comeing to her own conclusion now.

Sans stayed with Rain and kept watch as she struggled through her ordeal. It was the least he could to help make up for their screw-up. Now that the thing had gotten a taste of her memories it would come looking for her again in the night so he would keep an eye on her when he could. He had gotten pretty good at running from bad memories. He had also gotten pretty good at keeping quiet when they inevitably caught up to him, so he was perfect for the job.

He didn’t realize he had started to doze off in his chair until he heard the graceless thud of the human falling out of her bed in a tangle of sweaty sheets. He cracked one eye open, watching her in silence. Wondering if perhaps she would fall back asleep and spare him from an awkward conversation.

She groaned and sat up, rubbing her head and cursing under her breath.

“there’s some water over on the table.” He pointed out.

She flinched at the sound of his voice. She crawled over to the night stand and drained the glass. Her voice was raw and tired when she finally spoke. “What the hell happened?”

“what do you remember?”

She rubbed her head and plopped back down on the floor. She held her empty glass close to her chest like it would protect her from the creeping shadows. Her hands were shaking. “A whole lot of weird shit.” She rasped, taking several moments to try and quantify her memories. “ Voices, faces, static. Something went wrong during the extraction?”

“you could say that.” He ground his teeth ever so slightly in annoyance. He wanted to tell her but…“al is reading over the details of the extraction. she should be able to answer any questions you have in the morning.”

Her voice got snagged in a net of hesitation. “Was this something that would be worth doing again?”

He shrugged helplessly. “not sure yet. like i said, she’s still going over the details. the extractions shouldn’t all be this bad but we will understand if you don’t want to-”

“I’ll keep doing it.” There was no doubt or hesitation in her voice, just a hard, bitter edge.

Sans blinked in surprise. He had just listened to her scream and sob for an hour. As far as she knew everything she had gone through had been because of the DT extraction, not Memoryhead. Yet still she was desperate enough to do it again.

She shivered and hugged her knees close to her chest, dragging the blankets back over her. A thin line of whispered insults dripped from her lips; uttered by a voice darker than her own.

She began to whisper back to herself. “I’m sorry…. I’m sorry.  I didn’t know. What they did to you was horrible. But it doesn’t have to be-”

Her voice changed. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t care. It needed to happen. I needed to learn who my real friends were: no one. In the end I will make things even. So why don’t you stop sticking your nose in my memories and worry about what happened to _you_?  They are _lying_ to you. _Hiding_ something from us. Monsters will do that. They never follow through with the plans they promise you!” Chara spat under their breath.

Sans watched Chara with a wary eye, his grin fastened in place.

Rain’s eyes fell and she sighed. She turned her attention back to Sans. “Tell Alphys that I’m doing much better now. Tell her to do whatever it takes to get things right.” There was no energy in her voice.

Chara let out a frustrated sigh and then seemingly retreated into the darker reaches of their mind again.

Sans’s voice was unusually quiet when he eventually broke the silence. “what’s she like?”

Rain look up at him as if confused to find him still talking to her. “What?”

He shifted in place. “chara. what’s she like? i only ask because you didn’t even bat an eye at the prospect of another dt extraction. and buddy, after seeing what you just went through, to consider it the lesser evil…heh.” He shrugged. “well, guess it’s none of my business. just occurred to me that maybe nobody has asked you before.”

Her lip twitched and she buried her face among her arms. “No. No, thank you. You’re right. No one has thought to ask that before.” She took a deep breath and her eyes became haunted. “But I think you already know what she’s like. You have felt it before. Even if you don’t remember the details I bet you can still feel it sometimes. Because when I lose control and she breaks free, her feeling spreads. That cold silence? That aching emptiness that hangs in the air when an entire timeline turned to dust? That’s her. That’s Chara.

“Her words taste like a mouthful of ash and her touch is so full of anger that it _burns_. Everything aches until you go numb to it.  Because despite all of her hate, despite all of her anger- she still fills me with nothing but _cold_.

“And when she is blessedly quiet to the point of near absents, I feel a gaping nothingness in my chest.” She shivered, voice edged with fear. “It’s like my skin is made of flaking paper and all of my insides have been scooped out. I feel brittle and weak. Like my chest will cave in and crumble upon my next breath. I used to know a feeling that was better than this. But I have been trapped with this for so long that I have forgotten what life without her was like. I have forgotten the word for it. But I want to find that word again. That emotion. That peace. Whatever it is. I will do whatever it takes. Even though the thought of not having her there sometimes scares me.”

He frowned. “it does? even after all this?”

She nodded.  “I fear the empty shell that would be left if she were ever to leave. But what other choice do I have?”

He was surprised to feel a twinge of pity for her. He could relate to someone being trapped in the Underground. He could wvwn relate to someone trapped in a time loop. But your own body? Yikes. He slid out of his chair and stretched, several bones popping. “well, i guess i should go let alphys know you are awake. you had her pretty worried for a while.”

“Ok. I need some time alone with Chara to process some stuff now anyway.” She rubbed her eyes. “Thanks for listening to me for a while.”

“don’t mention it.”

She stopped him before he could slip out of view. “Sans?” Her voice was oddly cold now. The sudden change made him hesitate. “I’m reliving her life through my dreams. I’m seeing the things that turned her into what she is today. It’s very,” she gulped, “disturbing. And the parallels to my own life are kind of unnerving if I’m to be completely honest. I don’t like the idea of having to go through those memories again every time you extract some DT... But Chara is convinced that it wasn’t the DT extraction that caused these things to resurface. So I have to ask, what really happened?”

Sans was quiet for only a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. It took some effort for him to swallow the lump in his throat. He turned and took his leave, hunching his shoulders and shoving his hands in his pockets as he escaped down the hall. “alphys will be down here with her findings in a couple of hours. she’ll be able to give you the play by play of her findings concerning the extraction. until then i suggest you catch a couple z’s. you had a rough ride.” He could just hear Chara’s whisper carry down the hall as he left.

“He’s lying to you.” She warned.

“No. Sans never lies.” Rain assured; her own voice low and tired. “He just tells empty stories. He tells truths that are easy to misinterpret into whatever you want to hear.”

He kept his gaze trained on his shoes as the elevator door closed behind him. She was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters today since I missed last week. Everyone was really sick and using the computers so I quarantined myself in my room without internet. :P
> 
>  
> 
> I have been looking forward to getting to Memoryhead for a long time now. Not everyone seems to know that they will give you an item called "bad memory" if you chose the right actions when you encounter them. If you try to discard it you get the message "you tried to get rid of the bad memory...but it came back."  
> If you consume the item it will deal damage to you.  
> Rain and Chara have a lot of bad memories for it to mess with.


	42. Kindness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rain gets a visitor.

Even after the event was several days in the past and they had achieved a few more DT extractions without any complications, Alphys still felt like her stomach was a tar pit of nervousness and lies.

Rain had been merciful enough to not press her or poke holes in her various excuses when she gave them but the look she gave her said she was not convinced by the explanations she was given.

Chara on the other hand, had been particularly brutal in her attempts to bore into her with questions and accusations. She had snapped and snarled at her until Rain managed to regain some semblance of control and calm her down.

Alphys had been reduced to a tearful, stuttering mess.

“I am going to keep trusting you, Alphys.” Rain had said, her voice quiet and her overall body language that of a worn out ragdoll given a half-life. These past few weeks- well, technically months by now- were not being kind to her. Her soul was growing weaker. “I’m going to choose to believe that you are telling me the truth because I have always told you the truth and you chose to believe me. I am sorry for her outburst. I’ll try to keep her from snapping like that again.” They hadn’t talked since.

Alphys sensed that Sans still wasn’t happy with her either. He was tired and the fact that nothing they had done so far had given them any indication of progress didn’t help. She knew he wasn’t _mad_ at her. Sans was a pretty calm guy. He wouldn’t shout or throw things like Chara did but he would get quiet. She knew he was disappointed, maybe even frustrated. He was sleeping more and working less again. Back to his usual self, which she was starting to think may not be so usual  after all. He had seemed so interested in this project at first, there had been a light in his eyes that she had forgotten about. So seeing him go back to being lazy no longer felt right but that's what he had chosen to do.

Guess it had been a flash in the pan. 

“Well, I got the tests results back from the samples she gave us.” Alphys piped up, rubbing at her eyes and adjusting her glasses. “Turns out it’s only a reaction to the intense stress she is under. The Underground is so saturated in magic that it probably made the manifestation take place faster than normal since the stress was directly connected to soul trauma. The white color probably started seeping through the resets the same way everything else did.” She smiled to herself a little. “Once her stress level is reduced she will probably go back to her natural hair color.”

The poor thing had become convinced that she had started losing her hair color when she lost her soul to Chara. She would be happy to hear that wasn’t the case.

“cool.” Sans was leaning back in a chair on the other end of a table piled high with empty noodle bowls and stacks of paper. He kept the chair balanced on its back legs so he could prop his feet against the desk while he read through the results of their last DT extraction.

“anything on your end?” She prompted.

“same ol same ol. she is still regaining dt faster than we can drain it. it’s still not enough to stop her from resetting.”

“has she…tried to?”

“she reloaded this morning. chara pushed for a reset but rain dragged them back into a reload. oh, that reminds me, we should probably cancel today's extraction.”

“What? Why?” Alphys realized the obvious reason a second too late.

He grinned, happy that she had walked right into his trap. “forecast calls for some bad weather.” If Rain had popped out of a reset this morning then the extraction that was supposed to take place a few hours from now hadn’t gone over well.

She groaned. “I knew you were going to say that.” She really needed to get her head wrapped around all this time traveling stuff.

“come on, your smiling.”

“Sans…” She chided, trying to hide it.

“but yeah, she said the session didn’t go over well. we should probably just _weather_ the _storm_ and wait for chara’s mood to _blow over_. otherwise today is gonna be a _rainy_ day.”

“Sans!”

“We will just have to hold out and hope the next storm is a _brainstorm_ instead of a _rainstorm_.”

She hid her face in her hands. “Oh my god. Stop. Just stop.” This was her life now. A 24/7 forecast of rain and other weather related puns.

He chuckled good-naturedly. “so anything on your transfusion theory?”

The amusement slipped from her face and she sighed in frustration. “No. I-it took me months to isolate Determination. I don’t know if we have enough time to isolate an-anything else from the other human souls. She’s uh, she’s not looking too good, ya know?” She read down her very, _very_ short list and shook her head. “I, um, I isolated a few other components while I was trying to isolate Determination. I think they could best be described as Patience and maybe a sense of... Justice? I never really came up with official names for them. I don’t think they would help though. And even if we did find something in one of the other souls that could help her, it would take weeks if not months to re-outfit the extractor to siphon it.” She tossed her papers over her head in defeat and propped her head up on her hand.

“what if we let the souls themselves try to help? maybe the kids will know how to do something we can’t.”

“Do you really think they would be willing to help after all we have put them through?”

Sans looked out at nothing. He had a weird look in his eye and his voice came out a little bit quieter than usual. “yeah. some of them.”

“I’ll look into it.” She yawned. “But I doubt it will lead to anything. It-it would mean we would um, we would have to come clean to Asgore about this so we could get permission to use the other souls. I mean I guess it’s worth looking into- Rain did say that one of the souls was a good friend of hers and that they tried to help her once before… but the encounter ended in a true reset, s-so we r-really shouldn’t do anything until we have a better idea wh-what we are dealing with. Not to mention the fact that waking a soul from its dormant state carries the risk of it escaping if we are n-n-not careful.” She sighed as the cons continued to weigh in on her. “And if Asgore decides to co-come after her…”

Sans’s sockets widened a bit and the pricks in his eyes shone a little brighter in surprise. “she knew one of the souls?”

“Mhm.” Alphys was too busy looking through a folder to notice anything odd about his reaction. “The uh, the last one, I think. The boy who hid in the city for a few years?”

“oh.”

“Did- did you ever meet him? O-or were you not a sentry yet by that point?” She folded in on herself. “S-sorry. That’s probably kind of a personal thing to ask, isn’t it?”

He sucked in a slow breath through his teeth. “yeah, i knew ‘em.” 

Alphys jumped a little when a nearby timer went off; warning Sans that his break time was over and he had to get back to one of his real jobs.

“welp, pleasure as always, al. but i gotta get back to my snowdin spot before undyne comes in to check on me. don’t want her giving me the _cold_ shoulder again. or worse, an _icy_ stare.” Undyne had been working herself into a frenzy and was really cracking down on everyone. This was the second time that a human had managed to evade her and seemingly vanish into the shadows and it was driving her nuts.

Alphys felt horrible for not telling her what was going on.

The two friends bid farewell. Sans took his leave and Alphys took a break to go heat up some more takeout and sneak in a few episodes of a new anime she had found, while she multi-tasked between eating and reading through her recent Undernet messages. Undyne wanted to hang out again soon and was asking about coming over later today.

 She was taken by surprise when she heard a buzzer go off, signaling that someone was at the main door. For a brief moment she worried that Undyne had decided to skip the pleasantries and run right over like she usually did but when Alphys checked her security feed she was surprised to find a different familiar face waiting outside. She recognized the monster on her screen from the pictures he had posted on the Undernet: it was Papyrus.

She spoke through the intercom. “P-Papyrus? Wh-what are you doing here?”

He leaned towards the speaker outside. “Greetings! It is I, CoolSkeleton95. Also known as the great Papyrus.”

“Y-yes. I know who you are... I just used your name.”

His eyes shifted off to the side. “Oh. Well, anyway, I am here to visit a dear friend of mine. Her letters have been very concerning lately and I think she is in need of company. So I thought I would come visit!”

“Uhhh.” Alphys droned, trying to figure out what to do. “I, um, the lab really isn’t o-op-open to v-visitor right now. Sorry?”

“Oh. Well can I still checker out? If you catch my drift?” He winked at the camera then shuffled around for a second in the awkward silence that followed. He held up a black and red box, looking a little embarrassed with himself. “Checkers. I brought checkers. _That’s_ my drift...” He frowned distastefully at himself. “…I may be spending too much time with my brother.” He muttered. “I need to see other non-pun-intending people for my own mental health. Ever since the queen showed up, nothing is sacred anymore! They are punning late into the night! And as you can see, their bad habits are burrowing into my subconscious! So can’t I go see her? I promise to be quick about it!”

“I-I’m sorry Papyrus. You seem like a really sweet guy but I am really busy right now and don’t have time to um, to take you to her.”

A third voice came in over the intercom “It’s ok Alphys. You can let him in. I already gave him the rundown, he won’t cause any trouble.”

She scowled. “Sans?”

“Howdy.”

“What are you still doing here? I thought you left.”

“Forgot my coat.”

“I thought you had it on when you left?”

“Huh. Guess I did. Welp, found my coat! Thanks. Just send my brother on in. I will meet him in the elevator.”

“Well, ok. If- if you are sure… She _has_ been kind of down lately. I guess she really could use the company.” She hit a button to unlock the door and Papyrus stepped inside.

He waved to every single camera on his way to the elevator.

She smiled a little. She was glad Sans was ok with his brother speaking to Rain. Papyrus seemed like a nice guy.

***

“Psst. Human. Are you awake?”

Rain emerged from the covers, knocking several manga books to the floor as she squinted up at the bright lights overhead. Had she fallen asleep again?

“Oh good, you are!”

She balked. “Papyrus? What are you doing here?” She threw the covers off to the side and rushed over to the door, peering at him through the electric bars. Was this another dream? A hallucination? She couldn’t imagine anyone willingly letting him in here. He hadn’t come to visit her the last time she had experienced this day, before she had needed to reload to this morning. Had something changed because she had told Sans to cancel the DT session?

Chara woke up and watched him with hungry eyes,wondering if there was perhaps a way to get at him even now. She was bored of playing Rain’s game.

_“Chara, I swear to god if you so much as touch a single joint on that skeleton’s sweet, goofy body I will ram the both of us into the nearest electricity field and I won’t stop until we are so fucking crispy we belong in a twelve piece bucket! Do you understand?”_ Rain snapped.

Chara sank a little deeper into the background so she could scheme in peace.

Papyrus held up an opened letter; probably one of her more recent ones. He had a friendly smile on but when he looked down at what had been written, a small concerned scow furrowed his brow. “It is my understanding that you have been having a difficult time getting better. Your last few letters have been somewhat concerning and you seemed rather down in the dumps.” He brightened up. “So I thought: what better way to brighten someone’s day than to receive a visit from their very special mentor and best friend: the Great Papyrus!”

 Rain folded her arms and tried to peer past him to see if anyone was supervising this encounter farther down the hall. “That’s very sweet of you Papyrus, but how did you get down here? You didn’t break in or anything, did you?”

He put one hand on his hip and the other on his chest as he gasped. “Rain! I am surprised at you! The Great Papyrus would never consider breaking and entering!”

_“But breaking and exiting seems to be just fine.”_ Chara snerked. Memories of him crashing through a window played out to her hearts content.

“I assure you I got permission from Alphys before coming to visit.”

“Oh. Ok then. As long as someone knows you are here I guess it’s alright to chat.”

“Great!” He held out a black and red box for her to see. “I brought checkers. As well as several of my favorite word searches and books. If we head over to the break room we can set things up and you can tell me all about what’s getting you down while we play a nice relaxing game to lift your spirits!”

Rain let out a rattling “uhhhh” sound while Papyrus shifted the weight of the box against his hip and set a questioning scowl upon the energy field. “So what is this thing anyway? How do you open it?” He reached out to touch the panel on the other side of the wall.

Chara watched, eager and grinning.

“Stop! Papyrus, you can’t do that!”

“Why not?”

_“Alphys is a kind of doctor! It counts!”_ In his first letter, Papyrus  had mentioned Sans telling him that she was sick and that he had found a safe place for her to recover. No one had ever specified to him what Sans had meant by “sick” so she had simply played along to that tune whenever she wrote him. She kept up the facade partly out of her own personal shame and also out of the assumption that Sans probably wouldn’t be happy if she spilled the beans.

“Germs.” She blurted; a little red in the face.

“Germs?” Papyrus echoed.

“Yup. Germs. Super bad germs. I’m sick, remember? The field kills them before they can get out of the room. I have to stay in quarantine. Sorry. Doctor’s orders.” 

_“Really Rain?”_ Chara snorted.

 

He withdrew his hand. “Oh.”

Seriously, had no one bothered to warn him against _unlocking her door_?

“Well in that case I guess I will sit outside then.” He plopped his boney butt down on the floor and began to remove the contents of his little box. She walked him through how to slide stuff under the bottom of the field so he could give her a few books- because, you know, the gap at the bottom of the door could totally sanitize things  against these “germs.” _Obviously_.

Rain looked over her new entertainment. When he had said he had brought his favorite crossword puzzles he had meant it quite literally. The paper was old and bogged down with several layers of erased pencil marks over each hidden word.

With the crosswords offering no real challenge, they eventually settled on checkers. He set up the board on his side of the field and let her choose what color she wanted to be. He moved her pieces for her. It was a little clunky but the company was nice. They played several games, time flitting away unnoticed as they talked.

She had to break him of the habit of flipping the board every now and then though. Apparently Undyne was the one who had taught him how to play.

After he got a checker stuck in his eye socket for the third time, he finally relented and agreed not to use “surprise attacks” in checkers anymore.

 Their careful banter carried on. He didn’t press her too hard for information she did not want to give and insteadlistened to her complaints with a sincerity that she both craved and found rather alien to her current situation. He took her mind off of her dreary situation by telling her various stories about his little day to day adventures while he completely owned her ass at checkers.

She finally got to learn about what was going on outside of her four sterile walls. She had never let time progress this naturally before so it was nice to hear that her efforts to keep moving forward were bearing fruit, even if she did not get to see and enjoy any of it herself.

Papyrus was still carrying on with his super-secret training lessons that everyone knew about, Undyne had bounced back from her injuries with a vengeance and was still “upset” that she had lost track of the human.

Thankfully Papyrus assured Rain that when he had learned that she was in the lab, he had sworn not to tell anyone how to find her. It was a stressful burden to bear but the Great Papyrus always kept his word.

He bemoaned the loss of his brother’s jobs and had mixed feelings about the ex-queen staying with them. He was calling her Toriel now instead of Clone Asgore, although he still slipped up now and then, which made Rain smile. He praised Toriel’s kindness and had noted that she got along famously with Sans, which made him happy. But the puns… oh god, _the puns_. Nothing was off limits. No time of day was too late or too early, no topic too sacred to be spared by the duos punny crusade.

No wonder he had come to her little retreat seeking asylum.

But other than that, he loved having her over. “It’s like a never ending slumber party!” He said. And apparently the cinnamon butterscotch “quiches” his brother sometimes tried to make were decent now that Toriel kept him from straying from the recipe.

He looked rather sad however when he admitted that Toriel was still out there looking for her. He accompanied her on her long walks when he could. “She looks very sad and worried when she thinks no one is looking.” He said, looking rather crestfallen himself. “She will not tell me what she is sad about, but I know she is very worried about you. Maybe… maybe you should write her a letter sometime, too? Just so she knows you are ok and trying to get better?”

Rain pointed at one of her checkers and the place she wanted it moved to. “Maybe someday.” She replied, cagey through and through. “Now king me.” He made an overly intricate bow and kinged her. She smiled in satisfaction. She may actually win this round. “It’s just been really hard, you know? I thought I would be making more progress than this once I found someone who understood my situation.”

“Well if small steps didn’t matter, then we wouldn’t have legs!” He chirped. “Or stairs!” He jumped several of her pieces in quick succession.

Damn. Maybe victory wasn’t so close after all. What was he going to be like when he brought over something like Chess, or Stones? It would be a massacre.

“I understand your frustration, dear human. I too have felt the weight of similar struggles in the past.” He placed a hand on his chest and struck a dignified pose. She half expected the air conditioning to kick in to overdrive so that his scarf could start fluttering heroically behind him. “It may surprise you to know that even the Great Papyrus has had his rainy days.” He froze in place. “And that was _not_ a pun!”

She chuckled and settled on her next move, trying to salvage the game. “What kind of problems would be big enough to weigh down the Great Papyrus?” She mused.

“I need not bore you with my past troubles.” He assured with an airy turn of the wrist. “For I have thoroughly trounced them! Why, I have a friend for every finger on my hand now and am doing particularly well in my training lessons with Undyne! I should have nothing to worry about now!”

She felt her heart sink a little. She got the feeling Papyrus had been pretty lonely at one point. Perhaps he was even lonely now. Maybe that’s why he had been so adamant about keeping in touch; he was a little more familiar with her situation than she had realized.

“Still,” he began hesitantly, hand hovering over a red checker, “There are some days where I still feel like I’m not moving as fast as I would like to. Like with my training for example. I have only been training for a few months but sometimes it feels like so much more than that.” His brow furrowed. He looked like he was falling into a deeper level of thought than she was used to seeing him in. “Sometimes… it feels like I have been having the same lesson over and over again for years and haven’t gotten anywhere with it yet.” He put his hands on his hips. “To be honest it can be really uncanny sometimes! It’s like the days get all mechanical and blend together. And my brother’s terrible puns don’t help! They are so predictable- it’s like I have heard them all used in the exact same way before. It drives me nuts!”

The tension in his shoulders melted away and his smile returned as he decided upon a move. “But Undyne said I have to be patient. It takes time to learn new things and she said it’s natural to have slow days. And she was right! I have been learning a lot more in the past few weeks now that I’m getting the hang of it. So I’m sure you will get better and make progress too! We just have to take the small steps and eventually we get to where we want to go!”

She cringed away from her guilt. She had hoped that he had been blessedly oblivious to the resets yet in the end even someone as optimistic as Papyrus seemed to have suffered some wear and tear from the repetitive days. “But that’s just it, Papyrus. I don’t think I’m even taking _little_ steps anymore. At least not forward.” She rubbed at her face and groaned. “I just feel so tired all the time. All day, every day. Even my dreams wear me out. And I just... I was alone for a really long time with this problem that I have. I want people to stop treating me like I’m toxic or made of glass but I can’t blame them when they do because _I am_. I don’t want to be alone anymore but when people avoid me _I can’t blame them for it_.”

He pulled back a little. He looked hurt. Then he shook it off, laughing as he rubbed at that spot in his neck. “Well, then _those_ people are just acting like nincompoops. I certainly don’t treat you like that!”

Oh. Oh no. She had hurt his feeling hadn’t she? Dammit. “Oh, no. No of course not! I wasn’t implying that _you_ did that. Honestly you are the only person who doesn’t. If everyone in the world was like you, I wouldn’t have to be down here in the first place. I wouldn’t even be sick.”

He looked at her expectantly, like he was waiting for her to clarify something. But when she didn’t he shrugged it off like water on a ducks’ back. “Well, of course I did not think you meant _m_ e! After all I am a spectacular friend!” He gave her a genuine smile but she still noticed that he looked a little relieved. “And I am a great listener too.” He promoted, inviting her to tell him more. When she didn’t he finished with, “I am glad to have met you, Rain.”

She smiled and propped her head up on her hand. This guy. What had she done to deserve him? Absolutely nothing, that’s what. “I’m glad to have met you too, Papyrus.”

And then everything went black.

***

Apparently Undyne had noticed Papyrus had been acting a little odd today and had tried to follow him here. When she lost track of him she asked Alphys if she had seen him. When Alphys successfully deflected the question, Undyne decided that since she was in the area anyway, she may as well come over for a visit.

Alphys was in the middle of frantically trying to dissuade Undyne from coming over when the room went dark. Everything shut down. The lights, the cameras, several of the automated systems and even the doors.

“Oohhh that’s not good.” She slid out of her chair and scuttled over to the door marked as a bathroom. She had to pry her way inside and kick on the emergency power before the stupid thing would even let her descend to the bottom floor.

“I s-swear, if the dogs chewed through those wires again I-I’ll!” She shook her fist at the darkness but the threat died on her lips. Nothing. She’d do nothing. They were probably just bored because she hadn’t had a lot of time to play with them lately.

Yet when she went down to check things out, almost everything seemed to be in perfect order. All she had to do was flip a few switches and things started booting up again. “Weird.” She murmured, scratching her chin and checking through some of the other systems. It looked like there would be a few minor hiccups but nothing crazy. She turned around and scanned the room for any telltale mist or sludge dripping from the walls or corners to indicate who had shut off the power but she didn’t see anything. “Did one of you guys bump the switch?” She called out.

No answer.

She sighed, shook her head and shuffled back to the elevator. “Guys, we have been through this. Th-this room is really important. You can’t k-keep goofing around in here, ok?”

Still nothing. Whoever had done this had bailed.

She rolled her eyes and went back upstairs. She made a mental note to play and feed the amalgams a little earlier than usual today so they wouldn’t get fussy.

It was taking a while for the lights on the top floor to turn back on but the security cameras were already coming back online and the glow of the distant monitors were enough to help light her way through the room when the elevator deposited her on the top floor again. It sounded like the intercom was back online too, judging by the voices coming in from Rain’s room.

She didn’t notice that the main entrance to the lab had been pushed open. She didn’t see the blue glow from behind the mound of stacked noodle bowls until it was too late.

“Alphys.” Undyne barked.

Alphys yelped, jumping several inches off the ground and wrapping her tail around her leg. Her glasses nearly fell off her face. “Undyne? Wh-wha-what are you doing h-here?”

She used the glow of her spear to light the way as she marched to the halfway point between them, picking her way through toppled takeout containers. The play of light and shadows cast across her face did not do her anger justice. “Who cares what I’m doing here. What the _hell_ is that _thing_ doing _here_?” She demanded, pointing her weapon at one of the screens.

Alphys shrank in on herself, stuttering out a dozen half formed words that never quite found their ending syllable. Sure enough Undyne’s screen of choice was the one focused in on Rain’s room. “Un-Undyne I c-c-can explain.”

“Why have you been hiding her from me? From _me_ , Alphys!” She seemed to be torn between being angry and being hurt. “And why is Papyrus in there with her?” She made a move as if to rush off into the darkness in search of her friend but Alphys got in her way, holding out her hands. “W-Wait! Undyne, I can explain. Don’t- don’t hurt her. It-it will only make things worse.”

The bad situation then took a nosedive and somehow got worse. The lights finally turned on just as she heard the telltale crackle of static that warned of Sans’s arrival.

“aright. i’m back. guess my bro’s lesson went overtime today. undyne never showed up to check on m-ohhh, heeey undyne. what brings you here?”

Undyne looked like someone who had just unmasked a Scooby-Doo villain and discovered it was her dad. Her mouth fell open and her eye went wide. You could see the gears turning in her head, overheating in their attempt not to jam altogether. 

Sans was in on it too.

Sans, the guy who slept through all his jobs and then kept her up at night whenever she slept over because he was always making midnight snacks and laughing at his own stupid jokes.

Sans, the goofy hotdog man.

Sans, the guy who always took such good care of Papyrus but never managed to take anything else seriously a day in his life. He had fooled her. _He had been fooling her the whole time._

“You!” Her eye narrowed. She could be upset with Alphys. She could be disappointed with her. But Sans? She could be all out _pissed_ at Sans. “You are the one who took her, aren’t you?”

He looked at Alphys for some indication of what was going on and tried to play the innocent card. “uhhh what?”

“Don’t you dare play dumb with me!” She snapped. “I can’t believe you would put your own brother in danger like this!”

He frowned. “what the hell are you talking about?”

“U-Undyne its ok. She can’t get past the field. They s-seem like really good friends. He will be fine.” Honestly she kind of adored Rain and Papyrus. Would it be weird to ship real people together?

Undyne scowled in confusion. “What field?”

Sans’s eyes widened in realization. “Wait, my brother is here? In the lab? _With her_?”

It was Alphys’s turn to be confused. “Y-yeah. He came in around the same time you came by to get your coat… y-you said it was ok to le-let h-him visit?”

“Alphys,” He said slowly, “I never came back for my coat. I never took it off in the first place.”

“Th-then. Who? What?...how did?”

Undyne snarled, jabbing a claw at the screen again. “I don’t care who said what! He’s in there with her unguarded! So someone needs to tell me where the hell that room is before I start punching my way through the damn walls until I find him!”

Sans was looking at the screens now. The white pricks of light in his eyes were barely there. “Alphys. The field is down.”

“What?” She squeaked, the information finally registering for her. She rushed over to see for herself. “I-it can’t be. I-I made sure h-h-he couldn’t unl-unlock it by himself and I made sure that room was hooked up to the backup power supply!” 

Sure enough Papyrus was in the room with her, keeping the still- dark screen aglow with magic. The power had not been restored to that level of the lab.

“I gotta get in there. She’s still volatile!” Sans took a step back like he was planning to teleport but Alphys snagged Sans by the arm and pulled him back. “Wait! Wait a second Sans, l-listen to me.”

 “What are you waiting for? Why aren’t we moving?” Undyne demanded, unable to grasp why Alphys wanted to sit around and talk in a time like this.

Alphys looked at Sans, voice quiet as they watched the screen. “If we rush in there all a-angry a-a-and panicked and we upset her, we risk putting him in m-more danger. A-and if this is a trap, hasn’t she already reset today? I-if you go in there, she may already know where you show up and what you plan to do. If Chara is in control then she could be b-baiting us.”

“He’s my brother, Al! I can’t just leave him in there!” 

“And if she has already reset today, then she knows that! I-I-If we all go running off i-into t-the dark then she would have the advantage. But if we wait until the power is back on, we c-can trap her and…well…” she hunched her shoulders at the macabre prospect, “force her to bring him back, you know?”

Sans stared at the screen in shock as Alphys continued to press on. “B-but it may not even come to that! I think... I think we need to trust Rain a little here. At least until the power comes back.”

Sans took in a long, slow breath and pinched the bridge of his nasal cavity. “dammit… fuck.” It was too late for them to forcibly pull him out of danger if this was where the human wanted him to be. If they pulled him out before she was done she could just reset and try again.

 If Chara did manage to regain control, going down there now could initiate a morbid game of power-outage packman. Their safest bet was to restore order from up here first and then corral her.

Both Sans and Alphys suddenly found themselves questioning if the DT extraction had really been the reason Rain had reset today.

“Ugh! What the hell are you two talking about? Why is no one explaining why you have been hiding a freaking  a _human_ in the lab? Why is _Papyrus_ in there with her?”

Sans didn’t make a sound when Undyne picked him up by the scruff of his shirt and shook him. “Alright funny bones. Time to talk. What the hell is going on? What have you gotten Alphys in to?”

He looked over his shoulder at the security feed, both of them ignoring Alphys’s feeble pleas that they don’t fight. “you better pull up a chair.”

***

She was used to the power going out every now and then. But if she ever got close to the door the energy field would still light up to ward her off. Alphys had made sure it was hooked up to a backup power supply so that it would never fail.

Surprise! It failed anyway.

Her hands balled into fists as she felt Chara press against her will. _“Let me take him.”_

_“No.”_

 “Papyrus.” She kept her voice calm but the edge was unmistakable. “You should go find Alphys.” She took several steps back until she felt her back bump up against a wall.

 “I don’t actually know how to find her." He admitted sheepishly. "I should probably stay here with you and keep you company until the power is back.”

 “Papyrus, you need to leave. I’m dangerous.”

_“He practically came here on a silver platter!”_

_“No!”_

She heard him get up and cross the line into her room.

“Please, just go.”

“I don’t get it. Weren’t we just talking about how you didn’t want people to treat you like you were dangerous?”

_“Don’t you want the hurting to stop? The first one always hurts the most but after that it’s so much easier.”_

“Rain, are you ok?”

 “No!”  She slid to the floor, head in her hands and teeth grinding so hard they hurt. “I’m scared. I’m scared, ok? Just go!”

A small blue bone appeared, hovering above his hand. Its glow illuminated the small room and cast eerie shadows across their faces. “Are you scared of the dark? Its ok if you are.” He sat down next to her and set the bone on the floor, lifting his hand up above it and causing it to stretch until it was as long as her forearm.  In a wordless silence he wrapped her up in a hug.

For a brief second she tried to jerk away in alarm. Then slowly,  cautiously she accepted it and leaned up against him. The acidic, bubbling presence of Chara’s internal blows seemed to fade off into the distance a little once she found that small island of solace to cling to.

How long? How long had it been since she had had a hug? How long since someone had wanted to hug her? How long had she been keeping herself away from everyone when she craved just a little bit of friendly interaction? How long had she been poisoning herself?

They both stared into the blue light of his magic in a sad, blank sort of silence.

“It’s a cool trick isn’t it? Sans taught me. Back when I was afraid of the dark too.” Papyrus finally piped up. When she didn’t say anything in return he began to fill the silence by himself. “Rain, what is really going on here? I know you are not sick. You haven’t sneezed or coughed or anything. Not even once.”

“I am sick. It’s just… I’m sick on the inside.”

 “Oh.” He said simply, holding her a little tighter.

Eventually enough time passed for the lights to flicker back to life. Their harsh artificial glare made them squint a little at the sterile walls of the room but the hum of the electric field that was supposed to go over her door did not return.

Papyrus waved a hand to dismiss their little blue nightlight. “Rain, am I not a good friend?”

She pulled away a little so she could look up at him. He seemed to be genuinely concerned. “What are you talking about? Of course you are a good friend.”  
He rubbed a hand over that spot in his neck. “Well, you know, I am always trying to find new ways to become even cooler than I am now. So feedback is important. That’s how I came to be so great in the first place: practice! But, well...” He lowered his voice and his eyes slid off to the side. “It’s just that sometimes I can tell that people are hiding things from me. And I really want to help but they won’t tell me what’s going on. Am I doing something wrong?”

She balked, her mouth falling open. Never before had she seen Papyrus seem so… unsure of himself. She wouldn’t have even thought he was capable of it.

She put a hand on his boney cheek and made him look at her again. She had to fight to keep her fingers from becoming claws at the beck and call of Chara’s hunger. Her hand shook but she held it somewhat steady. “No. Papyrus, that’s not it at all. I swear that it’s not. They are just trying to protect you.”

He smiled a sad little smile that was so unlike him. “What about you? What are you trying to protect me from? Because I bet I could handle it! And then you wouldn’t have to keep doing this by yourself. The Great Papyrus could help.”

She thought long and hard about her choice then, all the while feeling Chara clawing at her insides, whispering dark thoughts. _“He’s so soft. So weak. I’m tired of feeling like this. Just let me…”_

Her lip quivered and she blinked back a blur of tears. Her voice wavered when she plucked up the courage to speak again. “Papyrus, I am afraid of what you would do if you knew the truth about me. You would have every right to treat me like everyone else does if you knew.” She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. “God, if you knew- if you could remember the things I have done...” she sucked in a shaky breath and steeled herself. “But I guess you have as much right to know as the rest of them do. So, if you really want to know, then I will tell you. Because you are my only friend and you deserve at least that much. So if you ask me to… I will tell you the truth.”

He squeezed her hand and hugged her with his free arm. “Rain, please... tell me the truth.”

So she did. She told him. She told him everything.

She told him why everyone was so on edge. Why everyone seemed to be having strange episodes of de ja vu and phantom aches and pains. She told him about Chara and how she had killed everyone over and over again in multiple timelines. She even told him about how time was starting to fray.

She told him how angry she was that Sans had never committed to stopping her in Snowdin when he had the chance.

She told him things that Sans and Alphys didn’t know because they had never bothered to ask.

She talked about how she now had to live through a second abusive childhood because Chara’s dreams wouldn’t stop.

She talked about how she missed her friend who had climbed the mountain and never returned.

And worst of all she told him she was tired. She was just so, _so_ scared and tired.

She finally admitted not only to him but to herself that this was her last run. It had to be. Because if time didn’t break and end it all for them anyway, she was going to have to give up. She had had her second wind. She had had her _third_ wind. This was her last breath.

She waited for the moment when she would say something so dark, so terrifying or insane that he would let go of her and back out of the room. Because once she started talking she couldn’t stop. All her bottled up words came pouring out.

But he never let her go.

He trembled. He nodded his head and asked small questions in a quiet voice. She knew he was scared. Everything was being turned upside down for him. She was hurting him. She knew she was. But he could take it. He could take the truth. He deserved to know.

He never let go. He only held her tighter. He held her while she sobbed. He rocked her back and forth. And when she finally came to a stuttering, babbling, shaky stop and ran out of words to say, he told her she was still his friend and thanked her for telling him the truth when no one else would.

Then he asked if it would be ok if he saw her soul for himself. He wanted to see this darkness everyone was so afraid of.

She nodded in agreement and ever so carefully he pulled her soul from her chest, so that all the world could see her internal turmoil made manifest in a swirling mix of waning light and hungry, snapping shadows.

“That’s her.” She sniffed, pointing at the swirling veins of darkness that had coiled around and through the red light of her soul.

“So that darkness is the little girl?”

Hah. Little. Nothing about Chara was little anymore. “Yeah.”

He smiled, the kindness in his eyes soft and warm. “And all that light, that’s you?”

“Guess so.”

He nodded, relived. “Rain, everyone casts a shadow. Even down here where we don’t have a sun.” He was practically beaming at her. “But look at how much light you give off, too!” He released her soul and let it drift back into hiding. “Even if your shadows are more literal than the rest of ours, you have to remember that your shadow isn’t you! You are stronger than her! Maybe even strong enough to help her be good again too, just like you.” He hugged her again, letting her throw her arms around his neck as she closed her eyes and tried to relax. Her body had been wound tight with the tension of impending panic all through her confession. “ So… so even though everything you said is rather frightening, I still believe in you!”

 In that moment, those words helped her to push aside Chara’s dark, clawing attempts at possession with an ease she had not felt since her first time in the Ruins. A resolve hardened within her that she had not had before.

She did not have much in this world. But she had a friend. And she was determined to protect him. She would protect him with everything she had left in her tattered little soul.

She was determined to be a source of light instead of shadow.


	43. Undyne the Un-dining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undyne the Un-dining
> 
>  
> 
> You know what time it is
> 
> *EDIT* the previous issue with the chapter repeating itself over and over again have been fixed. sorry about that- it was fine when i previewed it so i don't know what happened.

Alphys turned to face Sans. Her expression mirrored his own. All three of them had been listening in over the intercom They all felt scummy about intruding on such a personal conversation but one look at her friends and Alphys knew that this had been something they had needed to hear.

“Sans...” Alphys trailed.

“yeah.” He agreed.

“For a couple of scientists we sure can be idiots.”

“yeah.”

Alphys looked back at the screen. Rain was resting her head against Papyrus’s shoulder. They were still sitting up against the back wall, both of them looking absolutely spent as they clung to each other like their friend was a life preserver.

“We're horrible.” 

“Don’t say that.” Undyne was still lurking behind them with a cup of tea in her hand. Sans had brewed them something to try and calm their nerves while Alphy’s had worked on diagnosing the power problem. The busywork had helped keep him from teleporting to his brother and making a bigger mess of things.

Alphys made a frustrated sound that was muffled by her hands as she covered her face. “But we are! W-we kept looking at this like it was a strictly scientific problem. We isolated her because we were so focused on containing and shutting down the demon soul that we forgot it was still attached to a human soul in declining health.” She wiped away a few tears before Undyne could see them. This was a new low for her. She of all people should have been able to see why Rain had been struggling so much the past few weeks. She should have known why her soul had been growing weaker and Chara had started to regain sporadic control despite everything they had done to try and weaken her. Her HP was twenty for god’s sake!

“We kept trying to suppress the demon but we ended up suppressing both of them. We overlooked the most basic things we know about souls: that they need love and compassion to stay strong. And we have been isolating her from it.” Her mouth twisted into a bitter shape. “The perfect environment for something like Chara to thrive in.”

Undyne seemed to mull these words over. “But it’s not too late for her to bounce back, right? I don’t exactly get all the nerd lingo that’s been being tossed around since I got here but the whole part about our alternatives being a dead timeline or an eternal merry-go-round of murder didn’t sound like options I want to explore.” She rubbed at a sore spot in her shoulder where the phantom scar was. “She’s not going to fall down or anything, right?”

“humans don’t fall down.” Sans said quietly. “even when they lose hope and their hp should drop to zero, their determination keeps them alive whether they like it or not. they don’t turn to dust like we do. they just… keep existing.”

“We need to change everything.” Alphys decided aloud, standing a little taller in her resolve. “We can’t keep treating her like this.”

“it will be dangerous. we will be making ourselves vulnerable” Sans warned.

“How so?” Undyne rolled her shoulders. She still looked uneasy after having heard Rain’s long confession. “I can provide you with security for whatever it is you need. I will send over my best monsters to keep an eye on things. Just say the word and they are yours.”

“It can’t be like that.” Alphys tapped her claws together. “It’s um, it’s kind of important that we don’t tell a lot of people that she’s here? a-and I think surrounding her with guards would be c-c counterproductive.”

“not to mention pretty pointless. there really isn’t any way we can stop her if she really wants to cause trouble. the only reason she is here in the first place is because she _wants_ to be. the only reason no one has been dusted is because she has decided to be kind. there is no safe way to reach out to her without putting ourselves in a potentially deadly situation.”

“W-we will have to let her out and play it by ear. Work with her little b-by little and trust that she will be s-st-strong enough to stay in control and protect us.”

Undyne looked between the two of them, gripping her tea cup a little tighter. “What? No! That thing basically just said she can destroy the whole frikkin world! You can still be nice to her from a safe, secured distance. Look, I feel sorry for the runt too, but I don’t want to put Papyrus or anyone else in any more danger. Hell, I’d still be dragging him out of that room right now if I knew where it was. I don’t give a damn who I upset in the process.” Her jaw set tight against the half remembered nightmares she had been having. She remembered what it felt like to think he was dead. She remembered the relief she had felt when he had walked through her door a few weeks ago. “I don’t want him to get hurt.” She looked over to Alphys. “And I don’t want _you_ messing with her either. You can hardly burn toast- let alone form a defensive bullet pattern that could keep that thing at bay long enough for you to get out alive if things go sour. If she turns on you, you will be helpless.”

Alphys rested a tentative hand on Undyne’s arm and smiled up at her. “I-its ok, Undyne. I… I want to do this. I _need_ to do this. Honestly it’s not that different from what we are facing right now anyway. We have been playing this whole thing with a gun pretty much to our head. It’s just been easier to ignore it when we keep her locked up”

Undyne growled her frustration. “Fine. Fine, you guys do your nerdy science friendship thing! But as the head of the Royal Guard, I’m pretty damn sure ensuring the safety of the Royal Scientist is one of my duties. And if it’s not then I will apply to get it added to the list!” She crossed her arms and quite literally put her foot down. “I won’t bring in any other guards if you need to keep things quiet, but I’ll be damned if I leave you alone to deal with this matter of universal security by yourself.” Her fins wilted a little. “You got to keep me in the loop this time. And ask for help if you need it.”

Alphys’s mouth worked and various sounds came out but they couldn’t form themselves into a counter argument. She was getting really uncomfortable with the amount of guests wanting to set up shop in her lab. The amalgamates were already confined to the lower floors during tests and were getting cranky about it. What was she supposed to do if Undyne started patrolling the halls? Stuff them in a broom closet?

She looked to Sans for help but he shrugged in defeat. “Oh alright, fine!” She moaned. “B-but you have to promise not to fight her if you can just d-disarm her instead. E-even if she tries to goad you into something.”

Undyne made another displeased growl. “Oh alright! But no promises on keeping her face pretty if she hurts anyone.” Her lip twitched in a fussy little sneer that was mostly hidden by the rim of her teacup as she took a long sip. “I guess there will be other humans I can kill. Hopefully the next one that falls down here won’t be so messed up that I start to feel sorry for it.”

Alphys gave her a crooked sort of smile. Technically they were getting off easy. Although no one looked forward to eventually informing her that Asgore was in the dark about this too. “T-Thanks Undyne.”

“Mmpph.”

Sans cleared his throat. “it uh, it looks like she has calmed down now. she’s probably got a good handle on things down there. if chara was gonna pull anything she would have done it by now. i’m going to go get Paps during their next conversation lull before our luck turns south.” He didn’t wait for them to agree before popping out of view.

Alphys sighed and tried to work the tension out of her shoulders as she sat back down in her chair and stared at the screen.

Undyne leaned over to look too, one hand propped against the panel. “You sure about this? If anyone is making you do this against your will, just let me know. I will punch their face in, ok?”

“It’s- its fine, Undyne.”

Undyne sighed. “You guys got yourselves in pretty deep, huh?”

“Yeah. But… I still think we can help her. She’s really sweet, Undyne. I think you would like her if you got to know her.”

The speakers came to life again as Papyrus spoke and they listened in.

***

“I will probably have to get going soon. But I will talk to my brother about how they have been treating you. I will try to come back tomorrow.”

“Ok.”

“Will you be alright until then?”

“Yeah. Yeah I think I will be ok now. Thanks.” Rain smoothed out her hair and rubbed the gunk out of her eyes. “God, I really do love you for all this. Thank you so much for coming to find me. Thanks for taking the time to listen. It’s been so long since I had a good cry. Even longer since I had a hug.”

The points of light in Papyrus’s eyes went so wide it looked like they would pop right out of his skull. His cheekbones turned bright red. “L-love? Oh! Ah... I guess I too should tell you that I… that lo- that I…”

She pulled away from him, frowning in confusion at his flustered state.

“Oh shoot! Rain, I am sorry! I should have known this would happen!”

“Uh, what?”

“I have pulled you into a deep passion from which none can return! But alas, I cannot say that I like you the same way you like me. Romantically, I mean.” He put a wrist to his forehead in the dramatic style. “Forgive me human, and know that to make you fall for me was never my intention!” He turned away, eyes closed and hand clutched to his chest.

A goofy smile broke into genuine laughter as Rain rocked back on her haunches. It was a sound none of the monsters had ever heard from her before. “Oh, no, don’t worry about it. It was just a figure of speech. You can relax, Papyrus.” She smirked, patting him on the back. “My heart remains unbroken.”

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Positive.” She chuckled. “I mean, you are a great guy and all but I kind of have bigger fish to fry right now. Despite what movies tell you, you really don’t have time for relationships when trying to stave off the end of the world.  Would it be ok to say that I love you platonically?”

He parked up at the sound of that proposal. “Yeah ok, platonically then!” He wiped the spontaneous sweat from his brow. “Phew! Looks like we dodged a bullet.”

She smirked. “Yeah. I’m pretty good at doing that.”

“Nevertheless, I am sure that when you are done frying your fish, you will find someone just as great as me to fall in love with!” He scratched his chin. “Well, no. That’s not exactly true. But I will help you settle for second best!”

“Oh yeah?” She cocked an eyebrow. “Who could possibly amount to even _second_ best to the Great Papyrus?”

“Ah, a valid question.” He brightened in revelation. “Perhaps you could date my brother!”

The laughter caught in her chest and came out more like a cough. “I don’t think that is going to happen any time soon. Pretty sure that guy hates me.”

“Don’t be silly. Hating people takes up too much energy for someone like my brother to ever commit to!”

“Uh-huh.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Well anyway I’d rather not-”

“Or perhaps you would like to settle for my other second best-”

“Stop.”

“-Undyne! I bet you two could still be friends if you tried. And then maybe even more than friends!”

“Something tells me Undyne already has her eye on someone. But thanks.”

Papyrus tilted his head to the side in curiosity. “Really? Who?”

Rain smirked as she gave her answer.

***

“I have it on good authority that she’s been crushing hard on-” The human’s voice was consumed in static as Undyne made a surprised sound and choked on her tea, dropping the teacup.

She “tried” to catch it.

With her fist. 

But she “missed” and “accidentally” punched a hole in the intercom system instead and spilt her drink all over the mic, effectively cutting off the audio.

Alphys jerked away in surprise. She had been leaning forward, enthralled by the cute conversation and the revelation that Undyne liked someone. “Undyne!” She yelped, nearly falling out of her chair.

“Er, sorry. You wouldn’t think that a measly teacup could escape my iron grip like that.” She laughed, unhinged.

“A-are you ok? Did you cut yourself?” Alphys shook the tea stains from the sleeves of her coat.

“Me? Fine? Yep. Yup. Fine.”

“Are you sure? You look a little funny.” Undyne was standing there looking bug-eyed, limbs stiff and her lips pressed into a disbelieving little smile. Her whole face was going a dark shade of purple.

“Mhm!” She said tightly, spinning around and marching off before Alphys could get a good look at her. “Yep. Going to go find something to go clean that up. Sorry. I’m fine. Yep. Yup… Yep.”

She was fine, but the twerp that nearly spilled the beans might not be.

***

Maybe Papyrus really had gotten through to them. He did not return the next day as she had hoped but there was a sudden and otherwise unexplained change in her dreary life in the lab.

Apparently something had gone wrong with the field around her door and _only_ her door. No one knew what had caused it or how to fix it yet, so she had been moved to a new room a few doors down. The room was still small but the overhead lights didn’t flicker quite as much and it had more furniture in it. So far Rain had successfully kept Chara from breaking off the legs of their new desk and using them as weapons.

It had also been announced that apparently someone had dropped a teacup with enough force to punch a hole in Alphys’s intercom system up in the main hub, so communication would be shoddy for the next few days. The unexpected silver lining to this was that since Alphys was going to be running repairs over the next few days, instead of bringing her food down to Rain herself, she was now being given permission to leave her room and make her own lunch. She was told Sans would probably show up to keep an eye on her in the kitchen so she didn’t burn or stab anything that did not require a good stab and or burning, but other than that it sounded like a change for the best.

All the doors but the ones she was granted permission to use had been set to lockdown when she left her room and took the elevator to the second floor, the one right below the main lab.

She checked the number hanging over the door twice when she reached her destination. The words “breakroom” had been crossed out and replaced by “kitchen,” scribbled in chickens scratch. The lights were off but the door was unlocked. She stepped inside and shuffled into the darkness, searching the walls for the light switch. “Ah. Here we are.” The room was bathed in light as she found the right switch.

She turned around to survey the area.

Undyne was standing right in front of her. 

She let out an undignified caterwaul of surprise and jumped back, bumping up against a trashcan full of old microwave dinner trays and noodle cups that tumbled to the floor upon impact.

Undyne’s expression was caught between her tough-girl sneer and a satisfied smirk of amusement. “You let your guard down.”

Rain had her back pressed against the wall, heart still hammering in her chest and Chara shouting a mix of profanities and goading encouragement from the back seat of her mind. Her hands started to search for an improvised weapon without her realizing it but came up empty.

Well, they hadn’t been impaled yet so that was an improvement over their last encounter.  She would take the silver lining wherever she could get it. “Jesus fucking Christ! How long have you been waiting in here?”

“Hah! Long enough.” Now Undyne really was smirking. She uncrossed her arms and stalked towards the back of the small kitchen, pacing behind the main counter and picking up a chair from a nearby table. “Relax, punk. I’m not here to fight you. At least not _yet_.” She flashed her a menacing warning glare, “Try anything stupid and that will change.”

Rain brushed off dried bits of noodles from her pants and peeled herself off of the wall. Her heart was still racing. “How did you find me? Why are you even _here_?”

“Alphys said she needed someone to keep an eye on you while she worked.”

She ran her fingers through her hair in exasperation, trying and failing to keep her voice level. “She told you? I thought Sans was going to do that!”

Undyne’s lips pulled back to show her long pointed teeth and her fins twitched in annoyance. Her words were little more than a growl. “Well Sans isn’t here. He’s probably slacking off again today. Taking a nap under a damn tree I bet.”

“And so you are here to take his place?”

“Damn right I am.”

“And…you are not going to fight me?”

She leaned forward over the counter and gave her an absolutely savage looking grin. “So long as you don’t do anything stupid. I would never hurt an innocent.” 

Rain looked at Undyne, then at the fridge, then back at Undyne. All of a sudden she wasn’t that hungry. Spending the day in her tiny room didn’t sound so bad anymore.

 _“Oh come on. Why are you so scared of her? We have kicked her ass a dozen times by now.”_ Chara teased, ignoring the fact she had been startled too. _  
_

_"Shut up."_ Rain warned. Just because they could win in a fight against her didn’t mean it would be a pleasant experience if they tried. It was easy for Chara to forget just how much things hurt for Rain.

Undyne fell back into her chair, armor creaking as she settled. She had committed to wearing the majority of her armor today- only this set came in mostly leather instead or metal for extra mobility. “Well, what are you waiting for? Do you expect me to spoon feed you? Make yourself something to eat!”

It took her several seconds to force her eyes to pull away from the imposing guard watching her every move and instead focus in on the not-as-important selection of cheap food she had to work with. It came as no surprise when she found the kitchen to be supplied with several top of the line appliances such as a hot fridge she did not understand, the normal kind of fridge that sane people used and an MMT brand stove. There were plenty of other kitchen based inventions floating around as well but they looked like they had never been used.

Aside from a sparse selection of vegetables and a few eggs in the fridge, she found a bunch of TV dinners in the freezer, a few empty containers in the hot fridge that looked like they had once held spaghetti, and several empty chip bags in the normal fridge. There were also several boxes of ramen stacked up on the counter.

She picked up one of the ramen packets and sighed. “Ramen it is then.” She began to hunt down a pot and collect a few of the vegetables. She had lived through enough scavenging days with Daniel to know how to liven up a pot of ramen.

Undyne’s phone buzzed. She somehow managed to text despite wearing gloves and still managed to read the replies while keeping one eye on her charge.

 How did she do that? _She only had one eye!_

She made an uneasy sort of rumbling sound when Rain found the knives.

“I’m just chopping vegetables.” She sighed, dropping the knife and putting her hands in the air.

“Can’t you do that with something safer? Like, a spoon?”

“You can’t cut vegetables with a spoon!”

“Pffft! Not with that attitude you can’t.” She waved her forward. “Alright, I will let it slide just this _once_. But move your stuff over there so I can keep an eye on you! And when you’re done I want you to slowly slide the knife over to me.”

Rain rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath before doing what she was told. She was half way through letting her meager supply of vegetables simmer when Undyne put her phone away and cleared her throat. “Are you done yet?”

“No.” She started searching the upper cupboards. She found a few decent spices but was hoping to brew some tea as well. It was no replacement for coffee but it still had a good kick to it.

“Well hurry up. I need to get you out of here soon.”

“Why?”

“Alphys is taking a lunch break in a minute.” With far less gruffness she added, “and I want to make her something.”

Rain stopped and turned around, expression flat. “Is it going to be spaghetti?”

“What’s wrong with spaghetti?” She barked.

Rain rolled her eyes. What was with monsters and spaghetti? It had something to do with the flying spaghetti monster, didn’t it? There was an Underground spaghetti cult, wasn’t there?

“Nothing.” She hummed as she started adding her noodles. “You know I could just add more ramen to this if you guys want some. It wouldn’t be any trouble.”

“Hah! I don’t need your pity soup! You don’t seem to realize that you are in the presence of a spaghetti cooking master!” Undyne looked at her phone again. “Nygah! You are taking too long. Move over punk. I need to start before she gets here.” She jumped out of her chair and vaulted across the counter in a loud display of creaking leather and scraping metal.

She took a moment to give Rain a sideways leer before grabbing a nearby pot. “Don’t try anything stupid. I still go my eye on you.” She warned.

Rain stepped back to give her room. “I thought Papyrus was the master spaghettor?”

“He is. But who do you think taught _him_?” She cackled, grabbing some tomatoes from the fridge and throwing them in the pot, where she then proceeded to brutally pummel them into a pulp.

Rain stared at the massacre with dead eyes.

This... this explained so much. 

She moved her pot to the farthest burner and began to add little drops of egg to her soup while maintaining as much distance from Undyne’s impending catastrophe as possible.

Standing on her tip toes, Rain began to search the cupboards. “Hey, do you know where Alphys keeps the tea? I can’t find it.”

Undyne froze, fist still raised above the pulp of her poor murdered tomato. Rain could see the gears turning in her head; her one yellow eye darting between her and one of the cupboards. “Sure.” She said; the word suspicious and drawn out as she slowly reached into a top cupboard with a dripping red hand. “Let me just…get that…for yo-Nygah!”  Undyne threw the tea box at her head. “Ahah!” She shouted in triumph, tea bags scattering everywhere as she pointed a finger at Rain, fins standing on end.

“Ow! What the hell was that for?” She demanded. The corner had damn near poked her eye out.

“Cut the crap human. I know how your battle rituals work.” Undyne sniffed. “I know that in human culture, tea bagging is the ultimate display of victory over ones enemies!” With one red fist planted against her hip, she shook the other at a recalled memory. “Oh yes, I was humiliated when you achieved such a feat- in my own home no less! Granted I was wounded at the time- a cheap tactic-” She crossed her arms, eye half closed, “but I respected the tactic nonetheless.” She narrowed her eye, face uncomfortably close to Rain’s own. She seemed oblivious to Rain’s growing confusion. “But now? Now we are even. Got it?”

“Uhhhh, ok? Whatever you say, Undyne. Whatever it takes you to stop throwing shit.” Where the hell did she get these ideas anyway?

Just then the doorknob turned and Alphys poked her nose inside. “Hello?”

Undyne froze. “Alphys! It’s not safe for you to come in here yet. The human is still taking her sweet time cooking!”

She poked her head through the door. “S-sorry. Am I interrupting something?” She sniffed the air. Her expression brightened. “Hey, it smells pretty good in here. What is that?”

Rain took this chance to limbo her way out from under Undyne’s shadow and retreat back to her pot of soup. “Egg drop ramen.”

Alphys’s smile broadened until her buck teeth were showing. She inched out from behind the protection of the door and straightened her glasses. “Oh. That-that sounds kinda good, actually.” She wandered over to have a look, much to Undyne’s distress. “Do-do you think i-it would be okay if I added another packet of noodles to that?”

“Alphys,” Undyne warned through the side of her mouth, “What are you doing? That human was _just_ holding a knife a second ago. We talked about this! Besides, I’m making you spaghetti.”

All the color drained from the scientist’s face. “Sp-spaghetti? Again? _Here_?”

“Of course spaghetti again here!”  She seemed truly confused by Alphys's lack of enthusiasm.

“Great. Th-that’s great, Undyne.” She started to shuffle backwards out of the room. “I, um, I uh, I think I may have left my drill running in another r-room. I should uh, go and, uh, bye.” She paused only long enough to try and communicate something to Rain with looks alone before closing the door and darting away.

If Rain had to guess, that look translated into something along the lines of: “run, you poor, sweet summer child. It’s too late for me. Run and be free.”

“Fhuhuhu! Alright, see you in a few, Alphys!” Undyne called, all her teeth displayed in a massive goofy smile as she waved her red-stained hand at the closed door and the scientist’s fleeing outline.

Rain felt the heavy weight of a gloved hand thump down on her shoulder the moment Alphys was gone. Suddenly Undyne’s head was right there next to hers again. Her laughter trailed off, forced and awkward. Her face looked a little purple. “So. Listen, we have both tea bagged each other now, right?”

Rain cringed away. “Oh for the love of god- you should _really_ stop saying that.”

Undyne kept going, talking over the top of her. “Which means we are practically, like, blood sisters of war or something now, right?”

“At this time of the month? Doubt it.”

“Shut up. I have seen your history books. Blood brothers or sisters are totally a thing.”

“What the hell kind of history books are you _reading_? I just came here to make soup!”

Undyne continued to talk over the top of her. “And sisters of war, they…” the words seemed to choke her with their bitter taste, “they look out for each other, right? So if for no reason in particular, one of the said sisters wanted to obtain a certain recipe from the other…?”

A little of the tension in Rain’s shoulders melted away. She smiled, caught off guard and a little amused to see this massive, towering figure of steel and leather fidgeting around like a shy school girl. Suddenly she didn’t seem so terribly intimidating. “Undyne, do you need me to show you how to make egg drop ramen so you can impress Alphys?”

“What? N-no! You shut your punk mouth! And keep your cheap mind-reading tricks away from me!”

“…Mind reading?” Was that something else she had picked up from her “history books?”

Undyne gradually relaxed, her free hand tapping at the counter. “I just thought that,” She sniffed, trying to find a way to convince herself that she was still the one in control of this idea, “combining our cooking skills would be mutually beneficial. I mean, who the hell taught you how to stir a pot anyway? You have been letting your food sit there and simmer the whole time we have been talking. Who does that!”

Rain had to hide her smirk as she checked her meal. “Go grab some more vegetables, Undyne. And use the knife this time. Not your fist.”

Undyne squinted at her, a single sharp tooth poking out from her lips as she tried to decide whether or not that sounded too much like an order. “Yeah ok. Got it.” She said at last, retrieving more vegetables. She didn’t exactly chop them so much as she just stabbed them into smaller chunks but it was a compromise they could both live with. “But don’t think this makes us friends!” She warned, glaring daggers over her shoulder. “I still have my eye on you.”

“Of course you do.” Rain mused. “But isn’t that what friends are for?”

***

The cooking went better than expected but worse than was normal for most people. Two arguments, a broken mug, a dented pot, several dropped eggs and a small soup fire later, Undyne could technically declare that she had mastered the secret of egg drop ramen.

Although Rain would not consider the two of them to be best friends just yet, she had somehow enjoyed the strange interaction more than she had thought she would. Even if Undyne did demand that she stay at the opposite end of the kitchen whenever possible to “protect against close range human mind-control attacks” and the like.

Any attempts to deny this ability were met with more arguments.

Amidst all of this uncanny chaos Rain had learned something about Undyne that she had not grasped before.

Undyne was actually pretty cool.

Well, she was still a loud, looming figure of death and destruction that kept her on edge. She shouted the entire time they were in the kitchen, like they were in the middle of an anime battle. But Rain was starting to get the feeling that like Papyrus, Undyne wasn’t always trying to be intentionally overpowering. She just didn’t quite have a proper inside voice.

Hell, Rain had caught Undyne looking like she was even enjoying herself a few times- especially when she set the soup on fire. Of course as soon as Rain noticed the crack in her tough girl act the Royal Captain had managed to throw up that protective wall around her emotions again and go back to looking stern.

By then it was too late of course. Rain had learned her little secret. Undyne had a fun side to her. A goofy side, even. And more obvious than ever, a caring side- once you got past the loud and unintentionally intimidating first impression that is.

As it turned out, the whole ominous and pissed-to-all-hell attitude wasn’t a big part of her personality when her world wasn’t being consumed by genocide. Go figure.

Anyway, Chara was reduced to bitter grumbles and a successful attempt to burn the vegetables out of spite once Rain’s fear of her jailer began to ease away.

Rain was left to enjoy her slightly charred and now lumpy soup before Undyne hurried her out of the break room so Alphys could come back in without the risk of mind control attacks or whatever the hell it was Undyne had read about in her “history books.”

Oh well. Go get her, girl.

Rain was so busy smiling at the stranger-than-fiction encounter she had just had that she didn’t notice when the lights started to flicker. She didn’t notice the little scrapes or slithering whispers running through the walls ahead of her either.

Chara on the other hand, did.

With an electric whine the lights went out.

She stopped in the dark. “Oh come on, not again.” She sighed, trying to feel along the walls for a working intercom. Even if the main hub was still fried the connection between here and the break room may be ok, right? She wasn’t really sure how electronics worked but maybe she could get someone to come down here with a flashlight. “Dammit Alphys, when are you going to fix these stupid electrical problems?”

With a loud clatter the grate on a nearby vent was thrown to the floor.

She froze in place, hands balling into fists. She could feel Chara's presence more or less waiting beside her. She was not afraid. She seemed to know what this thing was.

“Boo!” A light flicked on.

Rain flinched a little.

Flowey cackled, his beady eyes scrunched up and his overly innocent smile pulled back in amusement. In a knot of his vines he held a flashlight close to his nonexistent chin so that it cast ominous shadows against his petals. “Howdy! Boy, you should have seen the look on your face. Something down here must _really_ have you on edge, huh? Pretty spooky.” He teased in a sing-song voice.

Rain stared down at him, blinking in surprise and trying to connect all the dots. Why was he here? _How_ was he here?

Chara laughed at her. _“You saved him in this timeline, remember? You let him go.”_

Oh. Oh wow, she had, hadn’t she? She had completely forgotten about him. He hardly ever showed up until they got to the castle and there had been so many time lines now where she had failed to keep him alive, that she had kind of forgotten about him altogether.

“Gee buddy, you look real confused. Looks like you have seen a ghost!” Flowey rose a little higher, winking and sticking out his little pink tongue in mockery.

“I forgot you were still alive.” Rain admitted in simple honesty.

He frowned, feigning anger. “Rude!”

She took a step back, eyeing him warily. Why was he here? Her knowledge of the little thorny flower was somewhat fuzzy. Usually by the time he showed up as anything more than a shadow in the background, she had retreated too deep into her dreams to notice him. She couldn’t recall much more than a few stray scraps and tidbits about his character.

The one thing she did know was that he was dangerous. Keeping him alive was a risk she had taken not out of kindness, but out of contingency.  He was the lesser of two evils and a safety net against Chara if she tried to take Asgore’s soul before Rain was ready. Out of everyone she had met in the Underground, he was the only one she imagined she could bring herself to kill if she had to.

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter.” He made a show of shaking the dust and dirt from his petals now that he was free of the vents. “I’m not here to talk to _you_ anyway.”

“Then why are you-”

He scowled and in his sweet little high-pitched chime snapped, “I said I wasn’t interested in talking to you. So shut up.”

_“Me. He’s here to talk to me.”_

“I’m not letting you two talk.”

He tilted his head, petals making shadows against the flashlight. The friendly look he had painted on his face was nothing more than a poorly rendered reflection of genuine emotion. Behind that child-like smile his eyes were beady and cold; like the eyes of a sewer rat. “Oh? Well then I guess I will have to do all the talking and trust that she will listen.” He turned his head to clear his throat in an unnecessary show. When he looked back at her she could tell he wasn’t really looking at her, but looking for Chara.

“So I’m not exactly sure what you are playing at down here Chara, but I have been around the block enough times to have a pretty good guess at your plan.” He rose higher and higher on his stem, waving back and forth like a dancing snake, his petals flared like the hood of a cobra. “It’s a good plan. A page right out of my own book! I find that it really can get you farther on certain paths, so long as you know how to do it.” He giggled, curling back and looking pleased with himself. “Or if you know someone _else_ who can do it for you.”

Was he glancing at her? Or Chara?

Chara stirred and grumbled, trying to press her way to the front of their mind. She didn’t like him dancing on the edge of her supposed secret. “ _Let me talk to him.”_

 _“Hell no.”_ Rain held the line. Determination extractions made them both feel horrible but it took some of the bite out of Chara’s attempts for a few days afterword’s.

“Why are you here, Flowey?” Rain sighed in exasperation, running a hand across her face. “Why do you still bother? Look at you.” She gestured to his petals. They were bruised and his leaves nicked, dotted with holes from past resets. “You are full of holes. Holes _she_ gave you.”

His mask faltered for a heartbeat then it was back, twice as strong as before. “I don’t care! I know she would never have done it if I didn’t deserve it. She- she was testing me. Making sure I knew my place!” His black eyes grew wide and venomous, his mouth a jagged slash as he hissed at her. “I wouldn’t expect someone as weak as _you_ to understand creatures like us. You don’t get how we work but I know Chara would never abandon me.”

She couldn’t help but let a drop of pity slip into her voice. “She killed you, you fool.”

“But she brought me back! She brought me back because I am useful! Because we are friends. So shut up!” His vines twisted around him, growing rows of thorns that scraped against the floor. “I don’t need your pity. It was just a test. I know it was a test. And I passed it. I’m alive and I passed it!”

“You are only alive because I saved you!” She turned to leave the way she had come. “Go away, Flowey. You need to forget about Chara.”

Biting vines wrapped around her heels and pulled her legs out from under her. She gasped in surprised as she pitched forward, landing hard enough to force the air out of her lungs.

“Don’t you **dare** turn your back on me while I’m talking to you, you idiot!” He dragged her back to him, her nails scraping against the floor as he wrapped her up in vines. The thorns gave her a bloody ring of bracelets around her wrists to match her ankles. Flowey lowered his head so that his jagged black maw was inches from her nose.

Chara jumped ahead in Rain’s moment of surprise, finally managing to push her way to the front. She looked at her brother’s pathetic display, unimpressed. He had not been one for temper tantrums in his old life. How amusing that it took so little to rile him up now. She laughed at him.

His black eyes darted this way and that, confused for a moment. “Chara?”

“Greetings, little brother.” She cooed, relaxed in his grip. “Thanks for chasing her away. She has been a pest lately.”

He relaxed but his face did not go back to normal. The vines loosened a little but did not let her go. “I knew it was you. I knew you were still there! You wouldn’t leave me.”

“Just tell me what you want.” She snapped, rubbing at her head. Rain wasn’t fighting back yet but she _was_ trying to listen in over her shoulder. She would be ready to pounce back into the front seat if they tried anything too rash. Chara had to play her cards carefully here. “You have some nerve showing up here. You better not mess anything up, Asriel.”

He lowered his head, nodding. The way the two of them reacted to each other you would think that Asriel was the one trapped in the lab and Chara was the one in control. “Yes. Yes, I’m sorry. How much can the other one hear?”

Chara scowled, trying to push Rain farther back and failing. “She’s not going away.”

Flowey thought for a moment. “Well, I think I know what you are doing. I was confused at first but eventually I saw the truth. With a pest like her, it was a good plan.”

Chara tiled her head. “Was?”

He blinked his black eyes, tilting his head sideways. “You messed up, didn’t you, Chara? You messed up and now you are stuck.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“You are losing control.” He snarled, snaking his way to her other side. “You wanted to use her to win over the monsters you couldn’t get past. you wanted to lull them into trusting you, didn’t you? But it backfired and that weak, sniveling, pathetic creature has you in a corner. You are losing to _her_.”

“I am not!” She spat, reaching out to grab him. Her hand twitched and her fingers curled back against her command.

Flowey jerked back a little, his face cracking into a little smirk that said “told you so.”

She glared daggers at him, letting him know that if he didn’t watch his mouth he would pay for it later. Eventually. Someday.

“I have been watching you ever since you left mom. I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. At first I thought maybe this was your way of tormenting me. I thought it was your play at revenge, living out your new life acting so pure and gentle while I…” He trailed off into silence and shook himself. “Then I thought maybe it was a new game of yours. I could tell this wasn’t your first time here so I thought that maybe you had  gotten bored too, like I did.” His little brow scrunched up, his features slowly easing back into his friendly facade while he thought. “But when you got to Papyrus, I knew for sure something was wrong.”

Chara glared at him. “You really don’t know how to keep your nose out of other people’s business, do you?”

“Well it’s a good thing I can’t! Otherwise you would be stuck down here forever, wouldn’t you?” He winked again. “I saw everything that happened in Waterfall. How else do you think that gangly idiot was able to keep track of you through all of those annoying resets?”

Something clicked for both Rain and Chara then. A question everyone had been trying to answer ever since Papyrus had come to visit her.

“It was you. You are the one that told him about the lab. Sans never would have opened that stupid, tight-lipped mouth long enough to give us away.”

“Golly, you got me there, Chara!” He giggled. Then he looked disappointed. “It took a lot of work finding you after he took you. Getting Papyrus to come was a pain all its own. And then you didn’t even try. You let _her_ beat you! I practically dropped a bundle of free levels in your lap and you didn’t even have the strength left to take care of him on your own!”

“How many levels do you have, Asriel?” Chara asked with an overly sweet smile.

He tried to act casual about it but he retreated back several feet. “Don’t worry Chara. I will look out for you. I will help you get out. I still have other plans I can use. I came here because I wanted you to know that.”

“I don’t need your pity.”

“No. No you don’t.” He was sliding back up into the vents now, moving backward so that he never had to take his eyes off of her. His attention turned to Rain now. “And you, the one messing with my sister- you really are a special kind of stupid, huh? You still haven’t figured out what this place really is, have you?”

“I keep telling her something is up but she won’t listen. This place gives me the creeps.” Chara sniffed, rising to her feet. She did not ask him to clarify what he knew. She would not ask him for anything. She would not beg.

“Oh gee,” he laughed, “boy are you two going to be in for a big surprise! Little word of advice: don’t trust Alphys. Or anyone who knows her too well. Otherwise you may end up in the same _sticky_ situation as the last guy.” He winked, sticking out his tongue again as his vines pulled the grate back over the open vent before he slid out of view.

A few moments later the power turned back on.

Chara returned them to their room but kept them rooted outside the door for several minutes. Rain let her stand there, wary of her motives but not yet finding it worth the trouble of fighting for control.

Eventually Alphys noticed that they had not returned to their designated spot after lunch. She contacted them from one of the working intercoms from somewhere else in the building, her voice wreathed in buzzing static. “Rain, i-is something wrong? Why aren’t you going inside? Um, I’m in room eleven if you need to send me a message.”

Chara took them over to the nearest intercom. Rain fought her a little along the way. “Quiet you. This is important.” She snapped. “I’m practically doing you a favor.”

_“Somehow I don’t trust you when you say that."_

“Didn’t you hear a word he said? He’s been watching us down here. He knows what everyone is up to.  He knows you have been trying to weaken me. And he’s trying to _feed_ me. He wants me to be strong again. Why?”

_“Because he’s your brother and he still loves you in his own twisted way?”_

“No. Because he wants something from us.” She hit the intercom button and synced it up to room eleven. “Alphys.”

“Y-yeah?”

“What have you been doing with all of my Determination?”

“I-I can’t tell you that.”

“Great. So you were stupid enough to keep it in the lab then. Go check on it. _Now_. And take your lousy fish friend with you for protection. My brother just stopped by for a visit.”

“…Br-brother?”

“He’s a bitchy flower. Maybe you have heard of him.” She ignored Alphys strangled cry of alarm and continued to talk over her. “Now go check. I think you will find that some of that Determination has gone missing.”

There was no answer. Alphys had rushed off in a panic, leaving Rain with a sinking feeling as she realized what Flowey had been trying to achieve.

She had almost lost control of the timeline.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *finishes chapter at 5 am* Sleep deprived me: Huehuehue I know just what to name this.  
> *later after waking up.* Wow I was up really late working on this. *checks the name night-post me gave the chapter* ...Ok this is either going to be really good or really bad.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~  
> fun fact: if you befriend Undyne before going in to Hotland and call her outside the lab, she will tell you she can't call off 01 and 02 for you because she warned them that if she ever told them to be nice to a human they should ignore her because she had been mind controlled. She then gloats over knowing about humanity's secret mind-controlling abilities.  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~  
> IN OTHER KINDA IMPORTANT NEWS! Today my computer was smoking and now the room smells funny! :D This old thing is ten years old and its performance took a sudden turn for the worse this week. Its struggling to keep more than three widows up at a time and can hardly handle videos anymore. I'm in the process of getting a new computer which will hopefully happen pretty soon, but if my updates become sporadic or stop then that's the reason why. Luckily I have all the important stuff backed up in half a dozen different places but I don't feel comfortable editing any more chapters until this gets fixed, in case the computer blacks out on me mid-edit. (as has become a common thing now. -.-) I have four more chapters ready to post before I run out of edited material.


	44. The Song the Birds Were Singing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Song the birds Were Singing  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> Rain nurses her budding friendships. Everyone has some cereal.  
> Someone gets hit by a...force of habit.

There would be no more DT extractions. Not for a long time anyway. Alphys had gone to check on her samples and found some of the tally to be missing. Not a lot. Just a little. Whatever could be skimmed off the top so to speak. Just enough to make one think that maybe they had simply misread the previous sum. Just enough that one might blame the numbers on a faulty machine rather than assume someone was stealing it.

At first Rain was stunned, Chara had saved them from Flowey. Maybe there was still good in her after all. Maybe they were starting to reach her.

Then logic set in and she let go of that daydream.

Flowey had been milking them. He wanted control of the timeline back. Papyrus had been an offering. The equivalent of a cruel child sacrificing a fly to a spider. He wanted Chara to grow strong so that they were forced to keep leeching Determination out of her so he could take it for himself. He didn’t know how much was needed to tip the balance in his favor so he hadn’t taken it all at once. He had not wanted to blow his cover too soon in case he needed more. So little by little, he had been skimming away.

At first Rain was confused by Chara’s rage. Wouldn’t she want her accomplice in control instead of Rain?

Once glance at Chara’s emotions told her this was not the case. If she had to describe Chara’s mood upon reaching this revelation, it was like letting your hand hover too close to a hot black skillet. She could feel the hate and bile rolling off of her in invisible waves.

Chara hated being used. She hated being lied to. She hated people assuming she wasn’t smart enough to catch on. And she especially hated that this scheme came from her brother.

Bottom line? Creatures like them liked to be the manipulator, not the puppet.

And then there was the subject of the timeline itself, a coveted thing. A crown jewel that both siblings had possessed and now desired with utmost selfishness.

 _“It’s mine. **Mine.** I won’t give it back. Not to him, not to you, not to Sans or Alphys or **anyone**. I am only letting you borrow it for your stupid game. I won’t let go of it. I won’t let anyone else control me. **I will be the one in control.** ” _She seethed and chanted this script over and over again throughout the night. Rain could feel her unease, her borderline fear at knowing how close they had all been to losing the one thing that made them strong. Losing it to her brother would have been horrible. Chara refused to be his eternal plaything. The very idea set her boiling over with fear and anger.

Chara’s only comfort was knowing that at least for her, something good had also come out of this near disaster: no more DT extractions. She was quite smug about that little detail. The past few days had been pain free. In her brother’s attempts to manipulate them he had instead given Chara exsactly what she wanted, an argument to present against the tests that no one could refute.

Rain kept quiet, listening to Chara rant and mutter deep inside her head while she stared up at the dim half-darkness of the ceiling. A few lights were on somewhere down the hall upon her request. They had been having nightmares again. The lights helped. Sort of.

Sans still came to watch them from time to time; not that she knew why he had suddenly chosen to do so. It was a weird thing to accept at first but something about him standing guard on the other side of the field seemed to keep the nightmares at bay. It was almost as if he really was keeping an eye out _for_ them instead of _on_ them.

But he wasn’t doing that tonight so the hallway lights had to suffice.

It was just enough light for her to make out the markings  on the ceiling. She had found a new dog-shaped splotch to entertain herself with and over time her imagination had run wild. In her mind the dog had gone on to create everything else that sat there above her. A world of little specks and splotches.

That one looked kind of like a fish.

And that one over there was a skeleton.

Off in the corner there were other dogs building a snowman.

Every lump she could not find a name for she simply dubbed as “Sans.” Too frustratingly lazy to make anything of himself no matter how hard she tried to goad her imagination into inventing something.

What a silly little world.

She didn’t quite notice at first that she could hear music. It got lost against the sound of her own breathing and the distant creaks and groans of the building trying to settle. But soon she was humming the toon, unaware of why it seemed so familiar until Chara stopped in her ranting and sank deeper into the darkness with a displeased groan.

Soon the words re-emerged from their memory.

 

_You fed upon my fears and strife_

_I let you lead me with your sweet, cruel lies_

_Now we must face his cold judgment_

_Prepare for a living hell!_

 

It was their song. The one Chara would hum to herself to remember the rhythm to Sans’s attacks. The song Rain had corrupted to carry her own meaning over time. It was slower now. Sad and drawn out compared to the tempo that had once played in the golden halls. It echoed against the lonely walls and called out to the distant shadows, the sharpness of the horn's notes lost to little bursts of static now and then as it came in over the damaged speaker.

Rain turned to look at the intercom and listened a while longer; learning its new rhythm and adjusting the pacing of the words she knew accordingly. When the verse looped back around she slid out of bed and pressed the talk button.

 

“I wish I could just fall asleep

But it’s too late for that; we can’t afford not to care anymore.

Tear us both apart and set this timeline free!

 

What have I done?

 My demons won.”

 

The horn stopped. For a moment there was silence and she worried that she had scared away her audience. Sometimes she forgot that others were not as numb and accepting of the grim details of her possession as she was.

“sorry.” A voice finally said. It was Sans. “didn’t realize i was leaning against the button. hope i didn’t wake you up.”

“Nah, I wasn’t sleeping.” She rubbed her arms and leaned against the wall next to the speaker. “Just having one of those nights.” One of those nights where it felt like the walls were watching her.

“ah.”

She scrambled for something to say before he could run off on her. “I didn’t know you played an interment. What is that? A trumpet?”

“trombone.”

She could practically feel the cheeky little grin he must be wearing, his eyes probably half closed in an amused squint.  She snorted to herself. “Of course. Next you will be telling me that your brother plays the _xylobone_ , right?”

He chuckled. “He does, actually. unironically of course. so don’t let him catch you calling it that. it was his second choice when it came to an instrument.”

“What was his first?”

She could hear him trying to hold back another laugh. “the kazoo.”

She cracked a smile. “Fitting.”

“yeah. He could never get the hang of it though. hard to play when you don’t have lips.”

She frowned and looked off down the hall, hoping but knowing he wasn’t anywhere nearby. “Wait, then how the hell do you play the trombone?”

“magic.” He cleared his throat- as if he had one- and changed the subject a little. “y’know it’s funny. i have had this song stuck in my head for what seems like forever. can never remember where it came from. i can’t seem to play it fast enough but i don’t think it was meant to be happy. was something real sad, i think.”

“Well, I think it’s more fitting this way than if you were to stick with the original pacing.”

“so you know more about it. care to share?”

She chewed on her lip a little and pulled up a chair next to the speaker. The seconds ticked by and she could hear him shifting as he waited.

“It was me. And by me, I mean… _her_. You gave her the pattern, she hummed the rhythm, I invented the words.” She felt everything fall into an uncomfortable silence on his end and she rushed to try and push her way through it. “Your attacks, they were so fast, Sans. They would shoot by or change sequence in the blink of an eye. So she came up with a way to memorize your habits over the resets. She would always say: ‘the rhythm. I have to remember the rhythm. Don’t forget the rhythm.’

“If the rhythm got screwed up you would nail her. So I started to make up lyrics. I must have gone through a few dozen versions back then- don’t remember most of them now. But I always made sure they would be just a little off beat. A little too fast, a little too slow- too many syllables. This one was my favorite. Way too slow. She hated the words. Screwed her up quite a bit near the end. I revised a few more things later on and used it to distract her when we were in the Ruins and Snowdin too.”

She heard him take in a slow breath and get up from wherever he was sitting. “cool. so all this time i have been playing my own death march. the song played at my own funeral.”

She bowed her head and picked idly at the little balls of lint on her shirt. Shit! This wasn't the kind of thing you should tell someone, was it? “Please don’t think of it like that. It started out that way but things change. It has a different meaning now.”

“uh-huh. welp, its late. i really shouldn’t be here. gotta make sure Paps is  tucked in all nice and tight for the night.”

Dammit. She was losing him again. Why was she so bad at this? Why couldn’t they ever just talk? “Sans, wait. I’m sorry. You know I’m really bad at conversation. Sometimes I forget that-”

“forgettaboutit. not a big deal. you’re fine, really. but i gotta go. see ya later, lady. sleep tight.”

Static.

Chara snickered at her latest ham-fisted attempts to extend the olive branch. Rain smacked the back of her head against the wall a few times and ran through a list of curses.

They had been talking like normal people there for a minute. She had ruined it.

She climbed back into bed and turned away from the little white dog on the ceiling. She closed her eyes while the rest of the music played out in her head.

 

_I look at your grin and ponder its true meaning_

_You’re waiting for me, upon your pillar leaning_

_This day won’t die, time is smothered in dust_

_…They did not deserve this_

***

One would think that between Papyrus and Undyne’s tendency to shout half the things they said, the secrets of the lab would become common knowledge among the population in a day or two. But to their credit they remained just as tight lipped about the human as both he and Alphys had been. They were also a little better at interacting with the human than he was.

The human had a good heart in her. That much he could be certain of. She was kind, patient and slow to anger. But sometimes he would watch her interactions from a quiet distance and see her struggle. Her hands would clench into fists and a scowl would shadow her face, arms trembling for but a moment when no one else seemed to be looking.

It was then that he realized that along with being patient, she was stubborn as all hell.

Humans seemed to create Determination out of different defining qualities. For some it was kindness, for others it would come from integrity or justice. Rain seemed to draw hers out of a need to protect people. She was determined to protect _them_. And now that she personally knew those she was fighting to protect, he watched her fight internal battles with the stubbornness of a dog with a bone on a daily basis.

Rain was a good kid. Really, she was.

But he still didn’t want to get attached to her during the lull.

Despite all the all-nighters and crazy planning, they still hadn’t found any real way to help her. They were only slapping band aids on the problem and with no solution in sight, he knew it was only a matter of time before she slipped up or ran out of steam and things went back to business as usual so he found himself trying to keep his distance while the others enjoyed their reprieve. He knew they were living on borrowed time.

Somehow seeing what could have been, what _should_ have been if she had come here without that damn infestation clinging to her chest, only made the lull all the more bitter in its little moments of sweetness. He wondered if she was aware of it too. Or was she still clinging to the hope that someone would pull a miracle out of their ass?

“Ah come on man,” Undyne chided, the traces of a fond grin catching on her lips as she put away the dishes from her latest trial run. “The chick isn’t so bad. As far as humans go anyway. ” She brandished a spoon. “Just don’t let her know I said that!”

Sans rolled his eyes. Undyne kept trying to find excuses for it but everyone knew Rain had grown on her. The human had a habit of trying to do that if you let her.

Still, he was grateful that the two of them got along so well. Rain took Undyne’s roughness in stride and even found ways to weasel past it in ways no one had expected; like showing Undyne new things to cook aside from spaghetti. Thank god _someone_ had finally found a way to do it.

Of course Undyne insisted it was just a cunning tactic used to help her better know her enemy.

Undyne went back to washing the dishes, a serious scowl pressed against her brow. “But still, she seems ok. A little weird, but ok. And Papyrus loves that little runt so there’s that.”

Yeah. His brother really had taken a liking to her despite his best efforts to try and keep a buffer between the two of them. Papyrus would love anyone if they held still long enough to give him their name.

He hated that someone as great as his brother struggled so hard to make friends. Sans was glad he was happy for the time being but the circumstances of his new friendship wasn’t fair to either of the players involved.

He... tried not to think about it too much. The inevitable ending to that story kept him up at night.

“i know she’s got a good heart in her. but we can’t ignore that she’s got a bad chunk of something stuck inside her too. and c’mon, let’s be honest, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be a little freaked out if she started singing a song about _your_ fight to the death. seriously, who does that? you’d have to be a goddamn megalomaniac for that to sound like a good idea.” He shook his head and under his breath added: “or a mega _lov_ aniac. heh.”

“Hah! I’d sure like to see _that_!” She barked, throwing her head back at the absurdity of such a thought. “Just me and the punk, all out on both sides! You know not everyone’s battle training consists of seeing how many hotdogs we can shove in our mouth at once, Sans. Some of us actually come prepared.” She teased, shaking a fist at the ceiling. Yet behind the act he could tell she was worried about that scenario. Her hand twitched towards one of her scars before she could stop it.

It had happened once upon a time. It could happen again.

Poor Undyne. For someone like her, knowing just how helpless she was in the grand scheme of things had to be complete and utter hell.

“Besides,” her voice softened a little, “you should be honored that someone gave you a theme song- not that I can actually imagine you doing something impressive enough to deserve one.” She teased.

He cocked his brow. “oh really? is that what you call it? a theme song? do you have one too, then?”

“Ppfft! Of course I do. What do you take me for? I have created no less than four theme songs for myself over the years. Two of them are even sung in the authentic battle language of human warriors: Japanese!”

“careful.” He chuckled. “if my brother finds out, he will want you to help him make a theme song for him too.”

“Oh, he already knows.” Her fins wilted with embarrassment. “We are still ah, working on that one. He keeps insisting we use a xylophone and like, a _ton_ of kazoos.”

He laughed a little harder, leaning forward in his chair so he could prop his elbows up on the table. “sounds like my bro.”

“Yeah, that’s Papyrus all right.” She agreed with no small level of fondness as she put away the last of the dishes. “So, how is the human doing anyway? Alphys said something about running more tests on her today or something? Anything I should know about?”

“nah. we already did em. they were just some scans to check up on the state of her soul and the memory imprint stuck to it.”

“And?”

“and she’s doin’ better. for now anyway. the thing she calls chara has not regained all her lost dt yet so she’s still the weaker of the two halves for now. rain’s soul has responded well to all of the positive company.”

Really well, actually. It was rather of surprising how fast she had improved. Made him feel kind of scummy knowing how starved she was for a little kindness. If anything it reinforced the fact that she really did care about them, right down to her core. Even if she had hardly had had a chance to know them in any more than fleeting, violent meetings up until now.

But he didn’t tell Undyne that. He tried not to think about it too much. It would only make things harder on all of them when the inevitable happen. And as time wore on, Sans became more and more convinced that the inevitable _would_ happen.

There was no end in sight. There was no progress being made. Just one layer of Band-Aids smacked atop another. 

“Good. That little string bean is pretty freakin tough. I’m sure once Alphys gets a plan thrown together she will kick this thing in the ass no problem.”

“maybe.” His eyes slid off to the side. “or maybe we are just spitting into the wind, ya know?”

Undyne made a disgusted noise, rolling her eye, fists planted firmly against her hips in a heroic pose. “If you can’t spit into the wind without getting hit, then you’re doing it wrong.”

“oh yeah? that another thing you’re teaching Paps to do?”

“of course. for a skeleton he’s gotten pretty good at it, too.”

“ah, sounds about right. in that case i have no doubt that under your tutelage, he will keep getting better, _spittle by spittle_.  ”

“Sans!” She groaned, tossing her head back, “No! We are being serious right now. No stupid puns!”

“heh. sorry. _drool_ have to forgive me for that one.”

Sans tossed around a few more puns while they talked about Papyrus. He would be along later in the day for a visit if things held up. Even though they would both rather have him keep a safe distance from all this, Papyrus had a way of wearing them down and Rain obviously needed the company.

Eventually their conversation trickled to a halt. The two of them were really only acquaintances connected by his brother and Alphys so they didn’t often get much farther than the usual Smalltalk anyway.

Alphys eventually wandered in after a long morning of wrestling with equipment that she claimed had been damaged in whatever event had led to some of their DT stores leaking. she had avoided giving anyone details about the discovery; only informing Sans that until she felt it was safe to continue, they had to stop the extractions.

Sans would have to pin her down about that one later. He knew Alphys had a bad habit of keeping too many secrets and he had a bad feeling that she had recently added another to her collection. He wouldn’t confront her in front of Undyne though, in case it had to do with the amalgams.

Soon Undyne and Alphys were all caught up in their own conversation and Sans was left to lounge in the back, a willing third wheel sitting on the edge of sleep.

Undyne was filling them in on her last lunch visit with Rain. She was taking the grim truths of her past encounters with the human better than the rest of them had. Whether it was feigned confidence or her warrior spirit shining through, he couldn’t be sure, but the other day he had walked in on them gladly comparing scars with an odd amount of enthusiasm.

_“Oh you think that’s crazy? Well check this sucker out. Don’t even know how I got it! Cool, right?”_

_“Oh, I think that may have been from run four, actually. Think that one came from the poker. I actually lost my grip and you didn’t bother to pull it out. You just kept trucking.”_

_“Hah! I’m such a badass. I’m not even surprised.”_

_“Yeah. Eventually got me right in the back of the neck. I think I still got the mark. See?”_

_For a brief moment her enthusiasm broke. “Woah… I really nailed you.”_

_Rain didn’t seem to be bothered at all. “Hell yeah you did.”_

He would never get how Undyne managed to just roll with that. If he had skin, it would be crawling. They were going back to that loop eventually.

For a while he had hoped that they would be able to finally kick the habit. For a while he had thought there may still be hope.

But eventually he had had to work up the courage to check in on his machine back home. He had forgotten about the scans he had set in motion before Rain’s arrival. It had slipped his mind during all the chaos and even after things settled down he had avoided going to collect the findings on principle alone.

Things were looking up. Everyone was alive. He was getting answers to many of his long standing questions from the anomaly herself. He hadn’t wanted to throw a wrench into all that. Schrodinger’s cat, right? So long as no one looked at those scans, then one could still argue that the machine both had and had not found a surviving timeline. Until he saw the answer himself there was still plausible deniability, right? Plausible hope... sort of.

Of course that was a pretty god-awful way to try and twist quantum physics to provide a flimsy excuse not to face the truth and he knew it. Eventually he had to go look and when he did he was greeted by several feet of blank paper; just like he always was.

Oh how he longed for years gone by where he would do the scans and see the timelines tapering off into an ever-narrowing band as they broke off against each other. At least there had still been hope that one of them would keep going back then. But now there was nothing. Now the scanner cast its eyes into their future, searching deeper and deeper within the void only to produce more blank prints. Not a single line left for them to follow.

He accepted their fate. It was looming over them now but it still felt so distant, like it was happening to someone else far away from here. Someone who wasn’t him.

There was nothing he could do to fix it. He could only enjoy what little time they had left before it all went dark. He could only try and make what life there was left to live a good one for his brother’s sake.

For a while Rain had made him think there was still a chance things could get better. For a while she had given him a reason to go back and check. But he had peered into their future and their future held a lack of ink. A lack of substance. A lack of time.

Last night he had loaded up the machine one last time and set it to scan, intending never to come back. That way he could fade out of existence imaging that somewhere, somehow, Schrodinger's cat was still alive.

***

She paused outside the door, her hand on the doorknob. She could hear snickering coming from the break room. That was odd. Had the timer on her door gone out of whack again? It sounded like there was more than one person in there. Usually it was just Undyne waiting in the dark for her, occasionally in ambush.

She pushed the door open a crack and poked her head inside. Undyne and Alphys were sat at the end of the table closest to her, snickering and giggling like mischievous schoolgirls.

“What are you guys doing?”

She was bombarded with a rapid flurry of shushes, both of their heads whipping around while they held frantic fingers up to their lips.

“Shut up.” Undyne hissed through a smirk.

“Shhh. Come here. Come here!” Alphys waved her forward.

“Why are we whispering?”

They giggled again and as Rain moved deeper into the room. She managed to look past the two of them and spotted Sans at the other end of the table. He was slumped across a waterlogged car magazine, head cushioned by his arms. It took her a second to realize he was sleeping. His back rose and fell with every soft breath he took.

Rain had long since noticed that Sans had a habit of sleeping with his eyes half open but now someone- Undyne? Probably Undyne- had used _tape_ to keep them that way. Under the tape his eye sockets were black with sleep.

“What’s this?” Rain whispered, stooping low so that Alphys could more or less speak in her ear as she scowled at the odd sight before her.

A rustling sound came from Undyne’s seat as she shoved her hand in a box of cereal labeled _Crunchy Pops_. “The dork fell asleep while we were talking to him.”

“S-so we are playing a little game. You know, just for fun.” Alphys showed her, her own handful of cereal and gestured for her to pull up a seat. “ One point for an eye, three for the nose and ten if you can get him to eat it.”

Undyne took aim and chucked a small, round bit of cereal at him. It bounced off his skull and rolled under the table.

“You sure he won’t be upset if he wakes up?”

Undyne scoffed at the idea. “Nah I do this all the time when I catch him sleeping on the job. He thinks it’s funny.”

Alphys offered her some cereal. With a little initial reluctance, Rain took aim and tossed the little yellow cereal pebble at him. She narrowly missed the eye socket.

“Good try, good try.” Alphys gave her a pat on the shoulder then closed one eye and took aim. Sans snorted when she nailed him in the nose.

Everyone broke into a flurry of snickers and quiet high fives, Rain included.

They took turns tossing _Crunchy Pops_ at him, freezing every time he stirred and smothering giggles whenever someone managed to score a point.This was by far one of the strangest games Rain had ever played.

They all tried again and again to get one to land in his mouth but for a skeleton Sans was notoriously tight lipped, even in his sleep. Several handfuls or cereal bounced off his teeth in vain. Undyne almost got one in before he shifted away and rested his head directly on the table. She hissed a dozen petty curses and almost threw a whole handful of cereal at him in exasperation while everyone else was scooting their chairs around to get a better angle.

“Well this is no good. Someone’s cup is in the way.” Undyne sighed. “Hold on, I’ll move it.”

Alphys stopped her with a touch to the arm. “W-wait. I think I can do a trick shot. I-I’m calling it now. In through the right eye, out the left, off the cup and right through the gap behind his teeth.”

Both Rain and Undyne did a double take.

“No way. That shot is impossible.”

“I think you are overplaying it, Alphys.” Rain warned.

Alphys was taking careful aim, waiving them away with her free hand. “N-no, no I think I got this. It’s just math, really.”

Everyone held their breath as a single, silent kernel arched through the air. Everyone waited with baited breath, mouths hanging open as the little yellow cereal poff tumbled down into the black depths of Sans’s right eye. There was a split second where it was lost from view then sure enough, it shot out of his left socket.

“Oh my god.” Undyne whispered, watching it bounce against the nearby cup and ricochet back towards the sleeping skeleton. It wedged itself in the gap right up against his back teeth.

Rain leaned so far back in her chair she fell over.

Alphys’s mouth fell open.

Undyne shot to her feet, scooping up Alphys and holding her high above her head like the scientist herself was a flag of victory meant to be waved. “Oh my god! We have a winner!” She hooted, parading the stuttering scientist around the room while everyone tried to shush her.

For a brief moment the lights returned to Sans’s eyes. The tape fell away and he bit down on the single victorious kernel. Then he closed his eyes again and went back to sleep, crunchy pops falling out of his eyes as he buried his face in his arms and went back to sleep.

Rain covered her mouth as she laughed, red in the face and clutching a sore gut as Undyne took the victory lap on tour, running out of the room and slamming the door behind her and muffling her bellow of “Goooaaallll!”

Sans didn’t stir.

Rain was left to compose herself on her own time. She waited for her friends to return but Undyne must have had a lot of energy to burn because wherever they had gone, it was taking them a long time to get back.

Eventually she got up to go make herself the lunch she had originally came here for. She shook her head, a smile refusing to leave her as she thought of the unlikely pair.

Sans, Undyne and Alphys: the scientist that outsmarted her, the heroine that had hunted her and the cold reaper who had judged her. Never in a million years would she have thought she would be spending an afternoon with two of them tossing cereal at the other.

Monsters were weird.

She loved monsters.

She rummaged through the kitchen, the smile never quite leaving her face. She didn’t feel in the mood for anything fancy today and cereal was obviously out of the question now. They had used up the only box they had on Sans so she decided a sandwich would do.

Undyne had confiscated all of the knives but Rain had a secret stash hidden away for just such an occasion.

Glancing around to make sure Undyne wasn’t going to reappear out of nowhere and apprehend her; Rain crept over to the one place the cold-hating warrior would never think to look: the freezer.

Recovering her single, flimsy plastic butter knife, the only knife she actually trusted herself with, she set to work on her sandwich as she hummed a familiar tune to herself.

On the other side of the counter she noticed the soft sigh that passed as Sans’s snoring had stopped.

She turned around to check on him.

Their eyes locked.

She only had a split second to register the panicked flare of blue and yellow shooting through his left socket as his gaze darted to the knife.

_Oh no._

She felt more than she heard the rush of magic accumulate behind her as her soul was unceremoniously yanked from her chest.

She jumped to the side, narrowly avoiding a short row of bones that came after her at a sharp angle from behind. “Sans!” She cried, trying to pull back from the second part of the attack as he dragged her soul towards it with a brutal shift of gravity.

She tried to jump over the single bone spike that shot out from one of the cupboards, splintering the wooden cover in its attempt to get to her.

She was too slow. It stabbed through the muscle in the back of her leg, a few inches below the knee. She howled in pain, gritting her teeth as her legs folded out from under her. She tried to catch herself on the counter but only managed to knock over her cutting board and send her sandwich sprawling across the floor. “Ahhh! Motherfucker!” She cradled her wounded leg and rocked back and forth, eyes darting around the confined kitchen space. Would there be another attack? When was her last save?

She tried to hold as still as possible.

She heard the bones disperse with a crackle. A second later the one lodged in her leg vanished as well; allowing a thick gush of blood to seep through and stain her clothes as a warm red puddle collected beneath her. She heard Sans’s tense voice ring in from the other side of the room. “Rain? Is that you or the other one?”

“It’s me.” She wavered, face screwed up in pain. Chara wasn’t even awake today.

“Why do you have a knife?” He demanded. She could hear the soft scuffle of his slippers against the tile as he crept out to see her.

She winced as she tried to drag herself away, leg dragging behind her and leaving a thick trail of sticky blood. “I was making my lunch.” She gulped; each word wobbling as she said them. She pressed herself up against the corner where the cupboards met.

Sans appeared around the corner, his eye still sparking with energy and his expression taunt and wary.

“It was just a damn butter knife. Look, over there, see?”

He surveyed the mess, taking in the sandwich and its scattered ingredients until his gaze settled upon the flimsy little knife that had snapped in two during the commotion. Finally he looked back at Rain and the full realization of what he had done sank in. The blue faded from his eye, the pinpricks of his eyes growing wider.

“oh god.” He took a step back. The sight of all the blood didn’t seem to be doing him any favors. He ran his hands over his skull. “oh god, rain, i’m so sorry. shit, are you ok?” He stepped forward, hand outstretched. Then he backed away again, unsure if he should invade her space.

“Am I _ok_?” She all but shrieked, nearly doubled over in pain. “I had a two foot spike lodged in my goddamn _leg_! That’s the kind of pain people compare other pain to! As in: _‘this hurts like a two foot bone shank to the goddamn leg!’”_

“i just-i was- i thought i was in the hall. i heard humming and saw the knife and i just…”

The angry fire in her eyes slowly began to die out as he spoke. She tried to press her lips into something more reassuring but she could still only manage a grimace. She inhaled and exhaled, trying to calm herself, sympathizing with his reasoning. Her breaths still only came out as a pained growl though.

At least Chara wasn’t awake to make things worse. She was hiding deep in a dream right now.

“It’s okay. Sans, it’s fine. Calm down. I get it. Really, I do.”

“is there, uh, is there anything i can do to help?”

She reached for her sandwich and failed. “You can start by getting that.”

The little white pricks of his eyes darted to the floor where it looked like all the condiments had waged a civil war against the bread and lost. “the…uh, the sandwich?”

“Yes the sandwich!” She snapped.

He stepped over the pool of blood and salvaged the remains of her sandwich. It had landed face down. Naturally.

She swiped it from his hands and began to wolf it down in aggressive, gulping bites. She didn’t even pause to taste it.

Sans stood in place, hands shoved so deep into his pockets she was surprised they didn’t rip through the fabric.

“More.” She ordered around a mouthful of food.

“right. ok. uh, let’s see. something better than instant noodles, yeah?”

“Something better than noodles.” She agreed with a grumble. The last strongholds of her anger began to ebb away when she saw the flustered state he was in, darting around the kitchen and trying to look into shelves that were too high up for him to reach. He pulled a box out of one of the cupboards. “how about some granola?”

Rain shook her head, hand flying up to her mouth. “Sweet mother of god, _no_!”

“ok, ok, ok. no granola, sheesh. are you sure i shouldn’t just uh, get someone? al knows where the first aid kit is. or, or if it’s really bad maybe i could talk to tori. we have been thinking of letting her in on all this anyway. when was your last save? i didn’t hit anything vital did i? you won’t bleed out?”

She swallowed the last bites of her grubby sandwich and let out a long impatient sound as she concentrated on healing. The blood began to slow and the pain started to ebb away a little. Damn, she was getting soft, wasn’t she? This wouldn’t have slowed her down this much in the past. “It’s fine. I’m fine. It will heal. Calm down.”

He pulled a couple small dented boxes out of one of the cupboards. “all i can find is something called pocky. i don’t know if that’s any better than ramen.”

She held out a hand and gestured for him to give her the boxes. “Whatever, I’ll take them. All of them.”

He did as she instructed then started collecting paper towels like he intended to wipe up the blood but he just kind of got stuck standing in the other corner, staring down at the red pool with a wad of towels clutched close to his chest. The light in his eyes was so dull one could chalk them up to simply being imagined.

Realizing he was falling back into the past again, Rain sacrificed her own comfort for his. “Don’t worry. I got it.” She grunted around a mouthful of pocky. She tried to mop up the worst of the blood with her pant leg. One could argue all she did was smear things around and add more stains to the fabric but Sans didn’t argue. “I know you don’t like blood.” She explained, gritting her teeth as she tried to do more cleaning than painting.

The ease of tension in his shoulders did not escape her. “i really am sorry. i mean it. i usually have a better handle on this kind of thing. are you sure there isn’t a way i can make this up to you?”

She raised an apprising eyebrow. Lazybones Sans offering himself up to the prospect of effort? Wow. He really did feel bad.

She winced as she scooted over a bit. She patted the ground next to her where the floor was still clean and beckoned him over. “Come. Sit. Share this pocky with me. Talk.”

He glanced at the offered spot, seeming to reconsider for a moment before he sat down next to her, back against the corner and his coat brushing against her arm. Having him this close was rare enough for it to feel awkward.

He tucked his chin against his chest. A few rattling bits of cereal rolled out of one eye socket and bounced onto the floor. He gave the cereal a distant, blank stare before a tired expression of amusement reached his eyes. “heh. hey, crunchy pops. i love that stuff. guess you were having fun before i ruined everything, huh?”

“You should have seen the look on everyone’s face when Alphys did a trick shot off your glass.” She mused, a faint smirk spreading at the memory and taking her mind off the pain a little. She offered him one of the little imitation chocolate-dipped sticks before taking several more for herself. She put the energy gained from them to immediate use. The pain continued to dull. “So, you get them too then? The dreams?”

His face fell a little and he rubbed at the back of his skull like he was nursing a headache. “yeah. ‘course i do”

She rested her head against the cupboard and looked up into the bleak lights overhead. “Well, just so you know, I’m not mad. It hurts like a bitch, but I’m not mad. Not really. Not over this.”

He sighed. Under his breath he whispered, “yeah well, sometimes i wish you would be.” It would be so much easier for Sans to shrug her off if he knew she hated him for the things he had done rather than knowing she was crestfallen over the things he had failed to do.

She frowned, not sure if she had heard him right. She didn’t press him for an explanation so the moment passed.

In less than a heartbeat he was shrugging off his previous comment, showing her a cheesy grin that would have fooled anyone else into thinking he was fine. “heh. anyway, sorry for being so _sternum_ with you back there but _tibia_ honest i had to make sure it was really you before i backed off. sometimes you leave me a little _rattled_.”

Her eye twitched. “Ok, so I get that bone puns are kind of your thing but I’m a college dropout that had no interest in medical school. So I have no idea what a sternum is. And I’m not really… in the mood.”

He held up his hands. “Say no more. We can pretend all of this was just a femur’ed dream.”

She rubbed at her face and made some mock noise of despair. “God, was that really necessary?”

He gave her a sheepish look. “yep.”

She was starting to get the feeling that he liked to make jokes because he was afraid to take anything seriously, because if he took things seriously, then they would start to matter.

Then, to her surprise, he actually said something serious on his own accord. “i don’t get it. how the hell did you ever get past me if i did things like _that_ to you?” He gestured at her healing wound, not quite looking at the blood. He kept his face hidden in the shadow of his hand. “i couldn’t have been that bad of a shot, right? it had to have taken a lot of resets for you guys to get it right.”

She tilted her head, curious. It sounded like this was something that had been weighing in on his mind for quite a while now. “You were a good shot, Sans. A damn good shot.” She assured, shuddering as dozens of ugly scars prickled at the memory. She had to admit that when he finally did commit to something, he tended to be _very_  thorough. “As for how I handled it? Obscene amounts of LOVE, I guess. Also Chara was the one in control so that was something she had to deal with more than I did. And when it got to be too much even for her, she would wrench me out of my dream state and use me as a shield. A membrane between her and the pain. That way the suffering was split between us.”

He balked. “that’s sick.”

She nodded; eyes distant.

“do, uh, do you do that too then? to numb the pain?”

She pressed her lips into a thin line, a single stick of pocky poking out next to the scar that always left the corner of her lip upturned. “No. I decided quite some time ago that I would never do that to her.”

“why not?”

“Because she wants me to. In her twisted world that means she’s won something. And between her story and mine there has been enough abuse in our lives without me adding to it. Violence ran in the family. I always told myself that line would stop with me.

“I may want to get rid of her and for the safety of the timeline if there is a way to put her out of her misery, I will. But I won’t torture her to ease my burden of consequence. I may be fighting her but I’m the one that gave her power in the first place. I had desires dark enough for her to feed on. If I turn bitter again it would only make her stronger.”

Sans let out a slow breath and mulled that over. She wondered what Sans would choose to do if he was in her shoes. His silence told her he was wondering the same thing and was not proud of the answer.

Rain heard a tap at the door, drawing her eyes away from the battlefield of condiments.

Undyne and Alphys were back, peering in through the little glass window. Rain frowned and tried to shoo them away before Sans could see. She was finally getting him to talk to her; she didn’t want them in here throwing things off track.

Alphys mouthed something to her, probably a question about what had happened. Undyne looked at the scattering of bread and lettuce, eyes catching on the red smear on the floor. She mouthed the question: “ketchup _?_ ” while pointing at the stain.

Rain rolled her eyes and nodded.

Undyne pressed her face against the glass like an over excited child. “Food fight?" She mouthed, seeming upset to have missed it.

Alphys seemed a little more observant and tugged at Undyne’s sleeve, whispering something in her ear while Rain continued to try and shoo them away. Finally they nodded in turn, looking a little concerned but otherwise getting the message. Whatever had happened was over and now everyone needed some time alone.

She could barely make out Alphys’s muffled “I ship it” before Undyne burst into laughter, causing Sans to look up in surprise.

“Alphys!” Undyne chided, picking her up and carrying her off again. “What have I told you about shipping real people?”

Sans leaned forward, trying to look through the little glass panel in the door. “was that undyne?”

“Yeah. They just passed by.”

“you should have waved them down. want me to go get them?”

“No. I’m ok now. I only need a minute.”

They sat with a tired silence nestled between them like a wounded animal before she plucked up the courage to speak again. “So, can I finally ask you some questions now, too? Or are you going to leave a wounded girl to fend for herself?”

“fighting dirty now huh? should have known you were planning something.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Fighting dirty you say? Now where do you think I could have picked up on such a habit?”

He shrugged. “guess it depends on the questions you have in mind.”

“Ok.  How about this.” She took all the remaining pocky out of the crunched up box and made sure all their tips were level with each other. “Whoever draws the shortest one gets to ask a question. The bigger the difference the bigger the question. We can stop when I finish healing. You can go first.”

He glanced at the pocky and nodded. “alright. seems fair.”

She offered up her fistful of snacks and they made their pick. He won the first round. He twirled the little stick in his hands before popping the whole thing in his mouth. “hmm. alright. i got one. why do you still sing that damn song?”

She flinched a little. “Please don’t take it the wrong way.”

“what other way is there to take it? you’re singing about killin’ me.”

“I would sing to mess her up. I sang to keep myself going. I never sang about killing you. That song was symbolic to her. But the thing about symbolism is that it’s always up to interpretation. So I ruined its meaning for her and turned it into my song of victory.”

“how can you think this is a victory?” he made a broad sweeping gesture at the mess they were sitting in. “no offence but you don’t seem to be doing so hot.”

“Because I’m still strong enough to sing it and you are still around to hear it.” She told him, deadpan through and through. “Please don’t be upset about it. It’s not meant to be condescending or anything. I won’t bring it up again if you don’t like it. But I hope that one day you will feel safe enough to hear the whole thing. Who knows, maybe by then I will be able to change the lyrics again. Make it a song about monsters and humans who learned to be friends instead.” She offered him a hopeful look that he retreated from.

She looked away and offered up the fistful of pocky again.

 He pulled the shorter of the two sticks again, but not by much. It would have to be something trivial this time.

“uhhh,” that mischievous grin returned, eager to brush off the seriousness of the last question. “so what was better, undyne’s cooking or your floor sandwich?”

She rolled her eyes. “Well, I still can’t taste much of anything really. But to be honest id take sharing this stale pocky with you over the both of them.”

He chuckled and held up his stick in a symbolic toast. “To taste buds.” 

It took her a minute to catch that one. She tried not to smirk but couldn’t help it. “Ok, that one wasn’t too bad. I’ll eat to that.”

Her turn to draw.

Successes! But not by much. Another little question. “Ok, here’s one. Why do you only ever smile? Your mouth hardly moves at all.”

He snorted. “cause I’m a skeleton.”

“No shit. I mean why don’t you ever change it? I've seen your brother do it. But you hardly ever even open your mouth. You just…talk through your teeth half the time.”

“well that’s an easy one. the answer? _magic!_ you didn’t really think i had vocal cords or something, did ya pal? i don’t actually need to open my mouth for you to hear what i have to say. Papyrus does it ‘cause he likes to be polite. makes him fit in better i guess.”

“Ok so that explains _how_ you can do it but it doesn’t explain why you _choose_ to.”

He squirmed a bit. “thought you said the questions would be easy if the sticks were the same.”

She frowned a little. “I thought this was an easy question.”

He drummed his fingers against his knee, trying to carefully arrange his words. He let out a heavy sigh of defeat. “lady, i’m tired. _dead_ tired.” He glanced at her, wondering if the joke would fly. If he could get her to crack a smile it would allow him to escape on a train of jokes like he usually did. But she didn’t. Her face remained attentive and serious. He was doomed to carry on.

She was caught off guard by how honest and quiet his words were when he next spoke. It was like he was afraid the world would hear and condemn him if he spoke too loud. “and well, as a skeleton, it takes less concentration- less energy- to smile.” He distracted himself by tracing imaginary lines in the floor. “i don’t do it ‘cause i’m happy. i do it cause i got nothing left in me.”

Rain pressed her lips into a fine line and her gaze fell upon the floor as well.

They didn’t eat any more pocky after that. She had been cheating anyway. Her wound had stopped bleeding before they had ever even started. It was just another ugly scar by now.

She wanted to hug him and say something comforting. She understood what he was feeling all too well, so much so that is hurt.  She wanted to promise that things would be alright for him and the people he cared about now. She wanted to say that the worst of it was over and from here on out they could work together to make things better.

 But they both knew she couldn’t promise that. So instead they sat side by side for a while and let the silence devour them.

Rain almost broke she silence. She almost admitted that this was her last run before she gave up.

Sans almost broke the silence too. He almost told her that in the near future all the timelines would be gone. Destroyed by her.

But they didn’t say that. They said nothing. Instead they sat there and enjoyed the weary company of two strangers who had come to know a little too much about each other.

There was no white noise to distract them. There we no friends waiting to burst in and lighten the mood. It was just the two of them now; appreciating the silent understanding they held for all the things they couldn’t quite say to each other, because they already understood each other’s reasons a little too well for it to even matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually made a complete set of lyrics for the whole Megolovania song just for this story. x) It was fun.


	45. No Mother of Mine/No Mother of Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~No Mother of Mine~~ / **No Mother of Mine**
> 
> Chara gets a visitor. Shes not happy about it.

“N-no. No. That’s not what I- y-yes. I know I said that but that’s not what I… ok. I-I think that could work. Well I don’t know yet ok? S-s-so I-I’d ap-appreciate it i-if you keep this quiet. Ok?”

“sup?”

Alphys nearly jumped out of her chair and dropped her phone. Sans peered curiously over her shoulder, trying to get a good look at what she was working on.

“Sans! I-I didn’t hear you c-come in.” She recovered quickly and turned her attention back to whoever was on the other end of the phone. “Hey, I need to, um, call you back. Try not to overheat o-or anything before you come in, ok?” She hung up and let out an exasperated sigh, her nose nearly scraping against the desk as her shoulders slumped. She took a second to compose herself before wheeling away from her desk.

Sans picked at an open box of spider doughnuts, not seeming particularly interested when he asked, “who was that?”

Alphys’s hands balled into fists and she stamped her tail against the polished floor. “Oooh! That was Mettaton again.” She huffed. “H-he came by last night so I could work on his body. I t-told him to g-go easy on his joints since I’m s-still making adjustments.”

“he didn’t listen?”

She ran her claws over her fringe and howled up at the ceiling. “Of c-course he didn’t! H-he was shooting a new show about fencing while white water rafting. Fencing! On the river! Water and joint stress! The t-two things that an experimental robotic body should _not_ be exposed to!”

“that’s rough, al.”

She took a moment to compose herself. “He’s going to be coming back in later tonight so I can fix him. _Again_.” She gathered up a few folders she had been pouring over. Under her breath she added, “Guess I should get it over with so that he can go back to ignoring me…again.”

Sans leaned over to try and help gather a few of the folders she had accidentally knocked onto the floor when he had startled her. “so, what have we go today? anything new?”

“Well,” she began to tap her claws together. She ducked  her head a little. “I, um, I was looking at the composition of the human’s soul. And well, I realized something?”

San flipped through the fallen folders. “really? well don’t leave me hangin.”

“The way the um, the demon soul is effecting her plays a big part in her healing abilities. E-even if it doesn’t want to cooperate. At first I thought that, well, that the impact Chara has had on her would be shortening her lifespan due to all the stress she is under. B-but, well, since she keeps healing I’m starting to think that’s not the case.

“There were two distinct possibilities: either all this trauma would destroy her body really early- like, _really, really_ early- as in i-if it was going to happen s-she would have died by now-  or… what is probably more likely by now, the benefits of their unity would l-lengthen their lifespan far beyond that of a regular human.”

He scowled. “what are you sayin, al?”

“S-she has the potential to have a lifespan as long as that of a regular monster. I think. I mean, she’s not dead yet ,right? And the w-way she can heal herself would passively slow down the way she ages. So…”

Sans’s expressions darkened. “so she could be with us for a while.”

Alphys brightened. “T-that’s right! So, um, even if we can’t completely fix her right now, maybe she still has a shot at having a good life, you know? Down here I mean.  We can string out our progress over a longer period of time now. Let her live her life. W-we can wait for more research in the field to get done, hold off on a-anything drastic until technology advances…”

Sans blinked in surprise. “are you saying you want to set her loose? let her go and hope something more convenient comes along later?”

“W-well, maybe? I mean if her body was going to shut down it would have done so by now. S-so she will probably be with us for a while. Asgore may not even want her soul anymore if he learns about the weird state it’s in and well, things have been going kind of slow…” She pawed at her computer chair with an idle hand, causing it to spin at a sluggish pace while she looked at the floor. “I just thought that maybe it’s time we start thinking about keeping her somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t the lab. After all she does seem to be doing better! E-even her hair color has started to come back.”

“right now the lab is the safest place she can be.” He glanced down at the files in his hand. He had picked up a few unrelated papers by mistake. They looked like the outline for one of Mettaton’s shows, although it was not one he was familiar with.

He stopped, frowning as his eyes started to take in what was actually being advertised on the page. “alphys, what is this?”

She went a bright orange when he held up the papers. “I-its n-nothing! R-really. Just a silly idea I had.” She hurried forward to try and snatch the papers away from him but Sans was deceptively fast and good at dodging.

“cooking with a killer robot? an opera? alphys, what the hell is this? and why is it plastered with mentions of a human acting as the main character?”

He let her finally snatch away her papers. She held them close to her chest and gave him a guilty look. “I-it’s for Rain.” She managed in something barley above a whisper. “She… she can’t keep living down there in the lab by herself. She’s doing really well, Sans. I know you are scared of her but she’s starting to get a h-handle on things. I just- I just, well, when I realized how long her lifespan could be it all started to sink in, you know? We have kept her down here for months and there is still no end in sight. I-I-I thought that maybe if we put her on the big screen, s-she would start to grow on everyone. Like she grew on us. A-and then no one would want to hurt her anymore. S-she wouldn’t have to worry about getting into fights that would bring out Chara a-a-and Asgore couldn’t kill her because she would be a public idol that gave the Underground Hope. It- it wouldn’t fix her problem but it would make life easier on her, I think. You recently said it yourself, she’s getting better. She’s making progress. ”

His words were tainted with sarcasm when he said, “yeah. she’s gone several weeks without committing genocide. we have observed a real _quantum leap_ in her progress.” 

Alphys narrowed her eyes and jabbed an impatient finger at him. “S-stop that. I don’t need your sass.”

Sans rubbed a hand over his face and groaned. “alphys, i know you mean well but that plan is a recipe for disaster. you would be putting mettaton in serious danger. if anything went wrong it would be broadcast on live television. its suicide. even if it wasn’t, you couldn’t win over everyone with that act. hell, even if you _could_ win over everyone that wouldn’t stop her from being dangerous. we don’t even know what she will be like in a week or two  when chara’s dt levels go back to normal.”

“I-I can wait until l then. I already talked to Mettaton and h-he said he would do it but it would take him time to set things up anyway.” She ducked her head, guilty. “He, um, he saw her on accident while he was over here last night.”

“he _what?_ ”

Alphys pressed on in a high-pitched rush. “Anyway! I can upgrade his body so he will have extra protection. And- and if anything goes wrong on live television she could reset. We don’t have to move her to the city or anything. W-w-we could move her back to Snowdin! I could help you outfit your shed into a one room apartment and she could-”

“al, no.” He tried to be nice about it but this was the bottom line.

“Sans,” Alphys visibly deflated. “I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep keeping all of these stupid secrets. I c-can’t keep hiding all the amalgamates down on the bottom floor like this. They are getting angry.”

“then don’t. stop keeping secrets. let them go home to their families.”

“I am trying to stop keeping secrets!” She snapped. “ What do you think Rain is? Or did you forget that she is just another sk-skeleton in my closet now, too? N-no offense. But it’s too much, Sans. It’s getting to be too much! Undyne nearly followed me down to the extractor last weekend before I had locked the amalgams away, Memoryhead is harassing Rain every other night that you are not there to watch her and yesterday I caught Papyrus talking to my fridge! My _fridge_ , Sans! I went into the break room and found him talking to the _third fridge I don’t have_!” She collapsed into her chair and buried her face in her hands. “It was mrs.Snowdrake. I-I forgot to check on her and she got lonely and wandered upstairs. And _Papyrus_ almost found her.”

Sans rested a hand on her shoulder. “alphys, the difference between the amalgamates and rain is that they still have a family and a home they can go back to. they won’t hurt anyone if we let them go. but rain… we can’t risk that with rain.”

She took in a shaky breath. “I know you wish you could lock her away and forget about her.”

“it would give us all a chance to have our own lives again.” he admitted, his words barely audible as he stared out at nothing. “before she reset and breaks everything anyway.” He added under his breath.

“But we c-can’t do that, Sans. _We can’t_. Eventually she will have to face the world again. And I just… I want to prepare her for that.  I want to be the h-hero for once and not some crummy mad scientist that makes everyone _melt_!”

Sans sucked in a deep breath and didn’t let it out. “hey, we will think of something. ok? eventually. actually, i was talking to tori and i think it’s time we tell her. she’s great with the healing stuff. maybe she can reach the black soul in a way the rest of us can’t. it was her kid after all.”

“Great. Another person in the lab.” She moaned.

“labs usually tend to have more than one employee, al.”

“Fine. We can see if she can help. Bu-but only if you can get Rain to save beforehand. In case she um, fires me and chases everyone out or s-somthing.”

“I think that can be arranged.”

“So which one of us is going to tell the queen?”

“not it.”

“That’s not fair!”

“alright then, nose goes.” He put a finger up to his nasal cavity.

Alphys’s hand shot up to her nose half a second too slow. “Sans, you don’t even have a nose!”

He blinked, processing this. “damn. really shot myself in the foot with that one, didn’t i?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “alright. i will go talk to her. you go let rain know.”

“Ok.”

“and al?”

“Yeah?”

“don’t bring mettaton into this.”

He was gone before she could offer up an argument or promise.

***

For the first time in quite a while Rain found herself feeling nervous. She didn’t have anything personal against Toriel but motherly figures still made her wary. She had been conditioned to fear them.

Chara on the other hand did have something personal against her. Lot of things. Introducing her to anyone she used to call family never seemed to bring out the good in her. So one could understand Rain’s concern when without much warning, they had been told that not only was Toriel going to probably be giving her a visit later today but she was going to be told about Chara.

Rain did not envy Sans’s assigned task of explaining things to the queen. The slippery bastard had a way of wording things so you could hear what you wanted too but there couldn’t possibly be an easy way to tell a flame wielding royal boss monster that you had been keeping what was left of her child locked away in a lab so you could do experiments on her.

Meanwhile Rain and Alphys needed to find a quick compromise for the impending meeting. Rain wanted to be strapped down and put in whatever passed for maximum security before the queen got here. Alphys wanted her lounging around in the break room to give off the illusion that she was less of a test subject and more of a casual guest using the lab to hide form Asgore.

In the end they compromised and decided that she wouldn't leave her room. She had fewer things to throw at people in there and an energy field that could be brought up in the blink of an eye if there was trouble. She also insisted that Sans be there to watch her. When she couldn’t trust herself she could at least trust him.

At least she hoped she could. His track record was a mess but sometimes a messy situation called for a messy answer.

In case Sans failed, they made sure Undyne would be nearby as well.

So now Rain was pacing the walls like a nervous animal, muttering to both herself and Chara, unaware of the sound of the elevator when it finally opened on her floor.

“welp, this is it.”

Rain froze at the sound of Sans’s voice. She suddenly felt like a guilty child that wanted to duck behind something and hide. At the very least she should pull up a chair and make things look casual but instead she froze like a deer staring into the headlights of an oncoming car.

They had promised to warn her before they came down here but those plans seemed to have fallen through. The main intercom system must be bugging out again. Alphys still hadn’t managed to fix it thanks to all the other stuff that needed her attention in the lower levels after Flowey’s tampering.

“Oh my. This certainly is rather Spartan, is it not? I do hope the room itself is better.”

“uh, yeah. a little bit. look, tori, just try and understand ok? she’s not uh, she’s not going to be anything like you remember. we have to be careful.”

“It sounds like you are trying to justify putting my child, the heir to the Underground, in a prison.” Her voice reminded Rain of a sword wrapped in silk.

Sans made some helpless droning noise in response, thoroughly helpless to mount a comeback.

Toriel hummed in thought, trying to pry herself from her own disapproval. “You know, I originally perused the art of healing after the tragedy that befell my children. Where Asgore thought to meet destruction with destruction, I instead chose to meet suffering with mending. And now it seems we may at last come full circle because of such a choice. Curious, is it not?”

“Hah, yeah I guess that’s pretty crazy.” Undyne agreed, answering for Sans so he had a chance to recover.

At her own mention of the king, one could practically feel the scowl on Toriel’s face as another thought occurred to her. “Does Asgore know of this mess as well?”

To his credit, Sans managed to recover after another brief bout of droning error noises.  “asgore? nah. if he doesn’t know where the human is he can’t feel obligated to come kill em, right?”

“Yeah he- wait _what_?” Undyne snapped. “I thought he knew!”

Sans snorted. “hell no.”

“Oh my god, Sans! Why didn’t you tell me? That guy is my boss!”

“uh, because that guy‘s _your boss_?” He echoed. Even from the other end of the hall Rain could still sense his shit eating grin and feigned innocence. “and you never asked.”

Undyne made some exasperated half-strangled sound of distress. “I’m so fired.”

They arrived at her door. “well, uh, this is it.”

There was a brief awkward moment where no one knew what to do. They just stared at Rain and she stared at them, like visitors to a zoo where no one knew what side of the cage they were on.

“Open the door, please.”

“first we gotta-”

“Sans, open the door. Please.” 

Everyone seemed to stiffen a little. That was the queen giving a mandate, not a friend asking a favor.

Sans sighed and gave Rain a helpless look. “you good?”

She mindlessly bobbed her head.

“okay. here we go. no accidents.”

Toriel did not wait to make sure the field had completely dissipated before she barreled through the door, sparks trailing behind her in an after image as she passed through the remaining static. “Chara?” She breathed; her eyes watery.

Rain made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a confused gasp that would not sound out of place coming from a goldfish. In two seconds flat Toriel had crossed the room and wrapped her up in a crushing hug that forced her up onto her tiptoes to avoid being swept off her feet. She heard Sans and Undyne take in a sharp breath through their teeth.

“I am so, so sorry, my child. Sans has told me of your ordeal. I didn’t know. I simply did not know. Oh, how I wish you had told me back in the Ruins!” Her soft fur pressed against Rain’s cheek, her breath warming her as Toriel held her close with the kind of crushing intensity that said she was afraid to let go in fear that this was all just a dream.

Rain stood there, helpless and completely taken off guard. She was not used to affectionate mothers and she certainly wasn’t used to anyone other than Papyrus being so willing to get close to her. But for once she did not enjoy the contact. She felt nervous and uneasy. She didn’t return the hug, her arms hanging limply at her sides.

This felt wrong.

This wasn’t for her.

Toriel wasn’t here for her. The way she spoke was evidence enough that she had already forgotten that Rain lived inside this body too.

Toriel didn’t think she was hugging her. She thought she was hugging Chara. She thought she was being reunited for her happy ending.

She looked over Toriel’s shoulder, sending a wordless plea to her friends to save her. This felt about as natural and unpleasant as wearing sandals over wet socks.

Chara spat and hissed inside her mind, irritated. _“Make her go away. Make her go away or I’ll kill her.”_

Sans cleared his throat but Undyne beat him to it. “Ah, your majesty, I don’t think that’s Chara right now.”

She slowly pulled herself away, drawing a handkerchief out from the folds of her robes and dabbing at her eyes. “Oh! My apologies. I hope you can forgive a silly old woman like myself for reacting in such a way. I did not mean to make you uncomfortable. But I assumed that having had time to prepare…” She trailed off.

Rain tried to offer up a reassuring smile but the way she backed away from the boss monster and hugged herself was more obvious than anything she could feign. “It’s fine. But neither one of us is really feeling up to cuddling right now so, um, best to keep some distance.”

_“If she touches me again I’m going to cut her.”_

_“With what? Paper? Because that’s all we have in here.”_

“It’s a lot to process all at once, you know? We need some time.”

Toriel took in a brisk breath and tried to smooth out both her fur and her robes. “Yes! Yes of course. Forgive me, my child. This is a lot for me to take in as well.”

Sans and Undyne took this opportunity to slip into the room and flank her as casual bodyguards. Toriel paid them no mind. “Sans was kind enough to tell me about this ordeal you have found yourself in. Although I believe I was given the abridged version.” She sent Sans a look that let him know she was still not pleased with him for having hid this from her for so long. Especially considering she had been staying at his house.

Rain could only assume he was damn good at using vague words if he had managed to fill in Toriel without alluding to all the stuff they had suffered through up until now. The scorn of a mother monster did not seem to be the kind of force any of them wished to trifle with.

One glance in his direction confirmed Rain’s suspicion. Short of winking out Morse code, the meaning of the look he gave her could not be any more obvious It was the kind of look that said: “lady, for the love of god, _do not open your mouth_.”

“Ah, forgive me,” Toriel prodded, “but could I perhaps talk to her now? To Chara?”

Rain took another step back. A few half words managed to drag themselves out of her mouth like wounded animals before she managed to sling together an answer. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

Toriel frowned. “I need to know that what you claim is true. Otherwise this whole story sound rather, if you will forgive me, absurd.”

Rain held up her hands in defense. “Look, I can tell you all sorts of stories and stuff to prove she’s in here if you want. Sans told you what kind of state she is in, right? She’s sick. No, scratch that, she’s worse than sick. There are chunks of her existence that are flat out missing.” Her voice softened and she gave Toriel a sympathetic look, reaching out to touch her hand. “She's not all there. And what’s left of her is not very...nice. She’s not going to be like how you remember her.”

Toriel didn’t seem to appreciate her long lost child being spoken of in an ill light. Rain got the impression she had been highly protective of Chara when she was alive but to her credit she did not lash out. “Yes, I suppose he did warn me of this. But I assumed she would at least wish to speak with me. She must be quite frightened.” Toriel touched the odd scar on her face. “You seemed so scared when I met you in the Ruins. I should have seen it then. She must have known I would be there and impressed upon you the need to search for me, did she not? It must have been so stressful and frightening for the both of you. You had just fallen and she had just woken up. Please know that I do not hold this against either of you.” She gestured to the scar.

Ok. So Sans had _really_ dodged _a lot_ of the important details with her.

Toriel kept staring at her. It took Rain a second to realize she was still waiting for Chara to say something.

_“Chara? Could you say something to her?”_

_“And help you?”_ A cruel sort of sound echoed through her head. _“I think not.”_

_“I have seen your memories. You loved them once. They treated you well. What happened to that? Isn’t there anything left? Don’t you feel anything for any of them?”_

Chara turned away. _“You know I don’t. At least nothing you would like me to express. She’s not worth talking to.”_

“She uh, she doesn’t feel like talking.” She rushed on when she saw Toriel’s face fall into thinly veiled annoyance. “Maybe after you heal her she will be more receptive? But I can tell you all sorts of stuff if you need proof that she’s there. I mean, you will see it yourself once you see my soul but if you want I can tell you all about how you made her Cinnamon Butterscotch pie? Or I can tell you what her room looked like, what bed she slept in… what you said to her when she was sick.”

Toriel’s breath caught. “No, no that is quite alright. As you said, she is still sick. My first priority should be to help her get better. I’m sure she will be more talkative once this has been addressed. She always was a rather quiet child anyway.” Toriel gestured to Rain’s heart. “May I?”

Rain glanced at Sans for reassurance. He gave her a semi helpless shrug. “Sure.” She peeped, sitting on the bed. She had a bad feeling about this. There was no way the solution could be this simple. “Go for it. Good luck.”

Toriel sat down next to her.

_“ **Get her away from me.** ”_

Rain sent Sans and Undyne a warning look to let them know things may get out of hand. Sans gave her a little nod and she heard Undyne’s gloves creak as the faint outline of a spear started to appear.

Toriel reached out and with a gentle hand guided her soul to the surface. The touch was soft and warm. It was a far cry from the cold, uncaring pull she felt when Sans attacked her.

“Oh my.” Toriel gasped, seeing the veins and tumors of darkness embedded in the red. Her eyes began to swell with tears. “Is that…?”

Rain looked away, uncomfortable. “Yeah. That’s her. Or what’s left of her.”

_“I do not want her help. I do not want to ‘get better.’ I am better this way. **I am stronger**.”_

_“You're hurting me.”_

_“ **I. D o n ’ t. C a r e**!”_

Toriel nodded. “I will do what I can.” A green light began to emanate from her hands and slowly started to wrap itself around their fused souls. The magic made a warm shell of light around them; a pale, swirling green slowly being absorbed by red.

It was a far less ham-fisted method than Rain’s own healing methods. It was not nearly as rough or itchy. There was no skin-crawling sensation of things being knit back together. Instead she felt a comforting warmth, like she had just woken up from a good sleep in a warm bed.

Chara on the other hand did not seem to be enjoying the attempt. She twisted and cursed at them both, snarling at the offered magic and purposely rejecting it even as Rain tried to accept it.

Toriel’s brow began to scrunch up in concentration.

Rain began to dig her nails into her thigh, gritting her teeth and hunching over in an attempt to keep Chara pinned as her anger grew.

_“Do not act as if you loved me, mother! Do not pretend you care for me now! I do not want your help!”_

Rain was not aware of how much time passed. It felt like she fought with Chara for both the fleeting seconds of a wing beat and the crawling ooze of an eternity dipped in molasses as they clawed at each other.

Toriel began to droop, wearing herself down as her attempts to reach the darkened half-soul became all the more desperate. Sweat began to mat her fur and her hands trembled. “Chara, please, let me help you.” She breathed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “My child, please. You are hurting. I can feel it. I can see it. Let me help you!”

_“I don’t want your help. The only love I want from you is the kind I get when you **die**!”_

Rain began to squirm in place. “Hey, um, she’s getting pretty upset. Maybe we should call this off.”

Toriel leaned forward, all the more determined. “No! I won’t fail her again! That she is still here at all is a miracle. I won’t give up on her. I won’t stand by and let history repeat itself. Not again!” Her magic surged, waves of green dancing around their soul only to be spat back in her face.

Rain turned to her friends, body shaking. “Guys?” She choked.

Sans and Undyne stepped forward to intervene at the same moment that Chara broke free. Chara’s shadow surged to the surface of their soul, angry, swollen and misshapen against Rain’s softer red light. “ **I. Don’t. Want. Your. Help!** ” She roared, backhanding Toriel and jumping to her feet, reaching for the heaviest book she could find.

Everyone shouted, Toriel stumbling back with widened eyes.

Undyne caught the queen under the arms and carried her away, barking orders to Sans.

Sans needed no goading. His hand had flung free of his pocket and in the blink of an eye Rain’s soul was blue. Mid lunge she became impossibly heavy and smacked her lip against her desk before she collapsed to the floor where she remained spread eagle under a crushing invisible weight.

“ah jeeze, sorry kid.” He grunted.

“Alright shows over. Sorry your majesty but you need to get back behind the line.”

“No! I was reaching her! Chara, please, let me save you!” Toriel wailed. She was not a natural fighter but it was obvious that she was still giving Undyne a good workout in her attempts to drag the queen back behind the safety of the door. Her fur was smoking and each syllable she spoke sent sparks flying from her mouth. Flames danced around her claws, summoned in her distress.

“you can try again later when she calms down, tori. just back up for now, ok? i warned you this may happen. its not over yet but we-”

“I don’t want to be saved!” Chara spat, blood running down her chin. She had split her lip in the fall. “If you ever try that again I swear, I will kill you!”

They managed to get the queen back behind the field and turned it back on. As soon as Sans let her go Chara got up and paced the barred opening like an animal, occasionally knocking items from the desk in her fit of anger.

Toriel sank to her knees, horrified to see the creature her precious child had rotted into. Her voice shook as she spoke. “Why? Why won’t you let us help you? Chara, why won’t you talk to me?”

Chara leaned in over her, her face shaded by blue as little warning sparks danced out from the field. “You are not worth talking to. You never were. It took me so long to figure that out but now that I know, I won’t forget. You don’t care about me. You never did.”

Toriel balked, mouth open and quivering. “How can you say that? We took you in and _loved_ you. We _still_ love you!”

“hey, uh, maybe we should go. tori. she’s… she’s not well, ok?” He tried to put a guiding hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off.

“No. This is my daughter, Sans. She is _hurting_. I will not leave her here alone!”

“Oh yeah?” Chara jerked forward like she was contemplating trying to push her way through the field. Undyne twitched with anticipation, lips pulled back to show her teeth. “This is the third time I have come back, _mother_. The third time I have been with one of the fallen _children_.”

Toriel put a hand over her mouth, eyes widening in horror and she came to understand the implications.

“I watched you tell every other child in your collection the same thing: that you _loved_ them. That you _cared_ for them. But you let them all go easily enough, didn’t you? They were just nick-knacks to you. Collectibles. Toys made to be broken. Made to be replaced! I knew it, Asriel knew it, the other kids knew it! And no one drove that point home faster than father did.”

“No. Oh god... no. Chara, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. We didn’t know. We did not know! ” She moaned.

Chara threw her head back and laughed until her throat was raw. A maddening, angry energy filled her veins with fire. “Shut up! I’m not going to listen to you anymore; just like Asgore wouldn’t listen to me. I came back over and over again- but no one cared.

“Even now, do any of you really care about us? About Rain? Or do you just care about what an inconvenience she is to you?” She smiled at Toriel, bitter and cruel. “Yes mother, that’s right, she calls herself Rain. Not that any of you ever bothered to ask her what her name was.” She turned inward, directing her words at Rain. “Didn’t you ever notice? Didn’t you ever catch on? None of them ever bothered to ask you. Not a single one.”

The room fell into a stunned silence and Chara pressed on."I tried to tell father back then, but he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t care. He did not ask me my name. Neither of you did. Once your original plan fell through you stopped pretending to care about  humans and got straight down to business, didn’t you?”

“I don’t… I don’t know what you are talking about.” Toriel sobbed.

“Yes you do. Yes you do, **don’t lie**! **I hate liars. I hate being used!** ” Chara shrieked, throwing a chair against the field, causing lightning to dance across the room.

Both Sans and Undyne let out cries of objection and tried again to get Toriel to leave.

“Did you really think I was that stupid? Did you really think I didn’t know? You were training me and Asriel to be ambassadors. _Ambassadors are worthless on this side of the barrier!_ I wasn’t your child; I was going to be your sacrifice so you could get _Asriel_ through. And when I did as was expected of me and that plan failed, you used both of us as a martyr for a war your own son died trying to prevent!”

Toriel was shaking her head, mortified. Appalled. “No. How could you even say that? That was never the plan. Yes, If- if you chose to let Asriel absorb your soul so you could stay with us after your human lifespan was over- we wouldn’t have tried to stop you- but that was never why we adopted you. That was _never_ our plan. Chara, I swear, we loved you. We really, truly _loved_ you! When we lost you and Asriel it tore us apart in ways you can’t imagine.”

Chara guffawed and looked away. “I could say the same thing about me and Asriel. Death tore us apart in ways you wouldn’t be able to believe.”

Toriel sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “You _and_ Asriel? I don’t understand. What do you mean?”

“Oh? Haven’t they told you?” She made a strangled noise and fell into a coughing fit, doubling over before continuing. Her lips twitched in a pained sort of way.“You should have seen what the humans did to us. They ripped his soul apart in the end. Its kill or be killed out there. It was a hard lesson for him to learn.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “It was a hard lesson for _both_ of us to learn. But at least I came out of the whole ordeal stronger. But Asriel?” She sniffed, looking down her nose at her. “It killed him. He _died_ learning that lesson.” She turned her back to them. “I don’t need your help. I don’t want it. And I don’t ever want to see you down here again. You are not. Worth. Talking to.”

Finally, Undyne managed to pull the sobbing queen up to her feet and coax her out of the room amidst a flurry of apologies and assurances that this was just the sickness talking. Toriel’s last despairing words, soft and forlorn, echoed out against the halls in a lonely whisper as she was escorted back to the elevator. “…Why can I not save even a single child?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~*~Don't try to use low-key science insults around Alphys, Sans. She knows what a quantum leap really is and does not appreciate your sass. ~*~


	46. Sans’s Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans’s story
> 
>  
> 
> ~*~*~*~*  
> Sans and Rain finally sit down and talk

Rain’s legs shook. She tried to hold out until everyone left in order to hold up appearances but eventually she collapsed against the nearest wall, sliding down to the floor.  She gasped for breath, her whole body shaking as she wiped the blood from her lip.

For a long while she was left alone in silence, Chara still screaming inside her head and occasionally regaining enough control  so she could shout at the uncaring walls. They were both unaware of the passage of time. Rain didn’t even notice when Sans returned. All she knew was that eventually she looked through the electric grate and found him staring back at her with black sockets and a cruel looking grin.

“that was some cruel shit you pulled back there.”

She flinched in the middle of dabbing away the blood on her lip. Chara’s shouting kept reopening the wound and she hadn’t bothered to heal it. “You could tell it was me?”

He snorted. “i know how to tell you two apart. you took over after the coughing fit, right?”

“Yes.”

He mulled this over. His eyes were still dark and his voice even darker. “y’know, if it wasn’t for tori, i would have killed you in snowdin. you really shouldn’t treat her like that.”

“I know.”

“hell, even now, if it wasn’t for the ol lady pulling me into a promise, if it wasn’t for your ability to go back, you’d be dead were you stand.”

“Really, Sans? Do I mean so little to you? I knew you were numb but I didn’t think you were cold.”

“i could say the same thing about you, lady. what you did just now, that was downright cruel. she came here to help you and you spat in her face.”

“I was protecting her.” She shot back. “We both knew this was a long shot anyway so I don’t know why you even bothered bring her here!” She met his glare with her own. When she finally had to blink she looked away and took a deep breath. “Chara wanted to tell her about Asriel.” She growled, feeling a protective sort of anger burn her throat. “If Toriel found out the truth about him she would go looking for him. He’d kill her for that . I had to drive her away. It’s not safe.”

“…asriel’s out there too?” This seemed to catch him off guard.

She frowned. “Of course he is. He had control of the timeline before I did. He’s not much better off than Chara at this point. Messing with him is a death sentence for most monsters. Just ask Alphys about him if you don’t believe me. We explained things to her when the DT started to go missing. Judging by her reaction I think she has run into him before.”

Sans hesitated. Now that he thought about it, Alphys had mumbled about downright sabotage  concerning the extractor. But he she had sort of led him to believe an amalgam had tampered with it. He would have to pull her aside and get the truth once things calmed down. This was too big a deal to let slide. “hope you’re tellin the truth kid.” He warned. “’cause it sure didn’t look like you were just sayin those things for her own good back there. you both looked mad.”

No. Of course not. She wasn’t mad. She had only been saying those things because she had to be convincing... right? 

She drew her knees up against her chest. Sometimes she wasn’t sure. It wasn’t always easy to separate their memories and feelings. And Chara was right, no one had ever asked her for her name. Even now she was aware of Sans’s wish to avoid the topic. Even now he'd sooner call her "lady" then recognize her as having a name.

She heard him let out a tired sigh as some tightly wound tension inside of him decided to give way. The bottom rung of the energy field shut off and he slid an already open box over to her. She heard his skull tap against the other side of the wall as he pressed his back up against it and slid to the floor.

She checked the box. It was pocky.

“that’s the real deal by the way. no imitation chocolate. down here its expensive stuff… tori wanted her to have it.”

Rain popped a few into her mouth. It seemed to help calm Chara down a bit.

“she wasn’t lying you know. about the plan. she never wanted asriel to absorb chara’s soul.”

“And how would you know?” She demanded, a little hint of Chara’s bitterness tainting her voice.

He seemed to mull his words over before saying them, deciding whether or not this was something he wanted to commit to. “because i knew the real plan. i was one of the schmuck working on it.”

“so there _was_ a plan for her!”

“well, yeah. ‘course there was. but it isn’t what chara thought it was.”

“Well are you going to tell me or just beat around the bush like the tight-lipped, cryptic ass you always are?”

To his credit he let the insult slide. “that depends.” His hand slipped under the barrier to show her a pocky stick he had nicked from the box. “seeing that look on your face, on _her_ face, when toriel came in here- it made me realize we both probably have some questions that are long overdue. so how about it? wanna try your luck?”

She picked a stick at random from her own supply and compared the two. Hers was shorter.

 “alright. you know how you joked about me having time lord technology?”

“Yeah.”

“well, actually, i do. or rather, i did. the old royal scientist, Gaster, was trying to find a way to free us. wanna hazard a guess as to why time travel was part of that plan?”

She chewed her snack slowly, enjoying the bitterness of the dark chocolate as she considered the options. Perhaps she should have been surprised by this time traveling revelation but by now time travel was a feature in her life that was about as interesting and consistent as breathing. “The barrier surrounds you in every physical direction, right? And monsters can’t pass outside unless they have a human soul?”

“correct.”

“and it extends into your foreseeable future.”

“yep.”

“so… the only direction it doesn’t block would be the past?”

She heard his fingers click. He was probably making finger guns. “bingo. figured you’d catch on quick. they never wanted chara to go through the barrier, they were going to send her back to before it ever existed.

“now, the people who locked us down here wouldn’t be interested in negotiation, _obviously_. but all we would have had to do is move the machine outside, fire it up again and then double back to the present day and boom: we have ambassadors outside of the barrier and a human population that would be more willing to hear us out. after that, all we would need is a few humans about to pass on who would be willing to help us before they go and that would be it. barrier broken.  no blood shed, no dust scattered…” He sighed. “it was a nice idea.”

Chara rolled her eyes, disbelieving.  _“You’re wrong.”_ She sank deeper and deeper into the darkest parts of their mind, not keen on hearing what she thought were lies.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t the king and queen say anything about it to Chara?”

She heard his coat scuff against the wall as he shrugged. “didn’t know if we would ever get it working. so why get everyone’s hopes up until we knew for sure? hope has rather potent effects on monsters. building it up only to tear it down would have been...bad.

“moral of the story? you two should really cut tori some slack. she meant what she said. the king and queen loved their kids. chara was never supposed to be a sacrificial lamb. some people wished she would be, sure. it would have been the fastest way out of here. but her parents never wanted that.”

Rain tried to find something worth saying. She wanted to feel some sort of satisfaction at having learned another piece of the puzzle that had doomed her to this way of living. Yet all she could manage was an empty “oh” in response. It was too far in the past to be fixed.

 _“If they didn’t want me to do what I did then they should have told me the truth! But they didn’t. And you know why? Because it’s a **lie**. Everything he says is a lie.” _ Chara spat, dispersing in a cloud of bitter smoke.

Rain grimaced, Chara’s anger leaving a bitter taste in her mouth. “So I guess it fell through in the end? The time travel stuff?”

He showed her another stick of Pocky. She scrambled to grab one and compare.

She won. He didn’t seem happy about it. He kept his jaw shut tight, hoping that if he ignored her long enough her winning stick would somehow go away.

“Come on Sans. Talk to me. I’m tired of your secrets.”

“heh. so am i.”

“Well then tell me.” She rested her head against the wall and stared out at nothing. She was exhausted. With Chara now in hiding she found it difficult to grasp on to any of her emotions. “I know it’s hard to talk to people when you know they will be reset. But even if that happens to the rest of them, I will still remember what you say.” She brightened a little, trying to smile. “I could be your time capsule. This is your chance to get some weight off your chest.”

He laughed at this, tired and still a bit bitter. “lady, no offense but if things reset you will probably be the last person i want to know all my secrets.” He lowered his voice, perhaps realizing how crude that sounded. “it wouldn’t really be _you_ that knew em then, ya know? it would be someone else.”

“Well, keep it vague then if you want. She’s slipping into a dream now. So she won’t be able to hear you soon. She didn’t want to hear what you had to say about her parents but I would still like to know what happened. It would be nice to understand how things managed to get so messed up.”

She heard him clicking his teeth in thought. “well, guess it’s too late to matter now anyway.” He pressed on before Rain could ask him what he meant by that. “after his kids died, asgore declared war on humanity. our main priority switched to weapons development instead of time travel. we didn’t have time ambassadors anymore but we sure had some big ass blasters that took their place.”

Something clicked for her then. Blasters, Sans’s cold unblinking skill, all the sentry stations, his familiarity with humans. She recalled his unflinching belief that for reasons personal or otherwise, he would have killed her by now if not for a single promise.

 “You were a solder. Not a scientist.”

He laughed. “actually, i was both. after the king lost his kids he uh, he got kind of _lax_ with the rules for a while. progress by any means necessary and all that. and, well, when the next kid fell…”

“You took their Determination. Didn’t you?”

She could practically feel him flinch but he ignored her accusation and jumped ahead. “as you know by now, dt plays a big part in moving backwards through time. it also tends to make its user more resilient in some ways, although the price is often paid for in frailty in other areas.

“once we had it, it became our go-to problem solver. better weapons control, higher endurance rates, time distortion… it could unlock it all if we fiddled with it long enough. so we started using it in our time travel experiments too. so long as we could link everything back to the war effort somehow, the funds wouldn’t be cut. and as you know by now, the ability to go back and have a do-over has incredible potential in a combat situation.”

There was a soft sort of despair in his voice. A distant kind of acceptance of what he could have had but never quite obtained as he pressed on. “we were real close to getting it all working in the end. we almost had a fully functional time machine. can you imagine? we could have fixed everything with that. 

“then we noticed something weird. you see, we had these scanners that helped us see all the branching timelines. that way we could maneuver through them without getting lost. anyways, they started picking up an anomaly in our future: timelines stopping and starting, breaking off at sudden points, looping back in on themselves, stuff like that. the farther into the future we looked, the fewer timelines there were. so we decided that for our first test run we would send out a scout to a point just after the anomaly started showing up.

“ …i was the scout. me and Paps, actually. although he doesn’t remember most of it. it was a real simple job on paper. get in, take a look around, get back. the only catch was that it took a lot of time to extract the amount of dt needed for the jump. we only had enough for a one way trip. so the plan was to use up all the fuel for round one while the rest of the lab team would stay behind and keep extracting while we were gone. by the time we arrived in the future they would have the next batch ready and i could go back with my report.”

“That’s kind of-”

 “confusing? yeah. things get a little messy when you gotta worry about paradoxes.” His voice fell, dark and grim. “and then… they vanished. the whole team.”

Rain scowled in confusion at having the story’s tempo crunch to a halt in such a way. “Vanished? Vanished how?”

He shrugged. “dunno. something happened during the startup. i was thrown ahead in time so i wasn’t there to see it, but something went wrong on their end. i came out of it ok and Papyrus, well he came out of it a little less ok. he’s still missing big chunks of his memory.

“the whole damn world lost its memory after that. my friends, my family, my colleges-they vanished without a trace and everyone just… forgot them. _time_ forgot them. the jump was aborted half way through its designated travel time so maybe we came out in the wrong timeline- i have no way of knowing anymore. or maybe everyone else got stuck in the void somehow and couldn’t get back out after we left. or both... could be both.”

Rain got up and leaned over so she could see him through the static. A look of sympathy crossed her face. “And without them there to extract more DT, you got stuck in the future and couldn’t go back to warn them.”

“yep. i mean, the machine was busted anyway. once the people that had built it stopped existing, the machine started to malfunction and _unmake_ itself. Paps was lucky to have come through at all. and as for the remaining dt inside the machine-”

He stopped himself. Rain muttered to herself before producing another pocky stick. She may or may not have carefully snapped off the end when he wasn’t looking. “What happened to the DT, Sans?” She inquired softly.

He uttered a curse to himself before gathering the resolve needed to press on. “i thought that… if the machine couldn’t be fixed ,then maybe the raw dt would be enough to send me back on my own.” He laughed at this, thin and stressed. “bad idea. stuff makes you melt. nearly overdosed and killed myself. and i never did figure out how to go back far enough to fix the things I wanted to fix. can’t reload time to a point before you _could_ reload time.”

Rain pursed her lips, knowing the familiar taste of that bitter realization. “Sounds like our problems work in parallels.”

“heh. yeah. fun stuff.”

He paused and for a moment Rain thought he had reached the end of his big confession. She had never heard him talk so much. It was surprising. She couldn’t help but sympathize with his situation. Eventually he picked back up again, his words quiet and broken as he was at long last allowed to admit to everything he had been keeping to himself.

“since i was outside of the timeline when the event took place, i circumvented some of its effects. i tried to rebuild the machine for a while but only the components i had had a direct hand in making still existed, so the schematics were riddled with impossible holes. i tried to find people like alphys to help fix em-  she had been on the team but didn’t show up for work that day so she survived- but… no dice.”

Rain reached out to give him a comforting touch on the hand but the field got in the way. She had invented a dozen of her own theories about who the short, cunning skeleton was but now that he was opening up to her she found herself rather unprepared for his story. “Sans.” She trailed off, unsure of what to say.

He took a shaky breath and ran a hand over his skull. “i, uh, i know what it’s like, you know. having the kind of power you have. sort of. i know you start to think certain things won’t count because you plan to go back and fix them later. i did some pretty stupid stuff in my attempts to save them. stuff i’m not proud of. i mean, i didn’t go on a _genocidal rampage_ but, well i did some desperate things. made my brother worry.

“he’s what pulled me back from it in the end. kept telling me everyone could be a good person if they just tried.” He grinned up at her. “sound familiar?”

Rain ducked her head, a wave of emotion running through her. “He’s a good guy.”

“The greatest. He made me realize i was throwing away the only family i still had for the family i had already lost. so in the end i gave up." She shifted in place, hunkering down deeper into the folds of his own coat. "i was worried i was becoming the anomaly i had been looking for anyway. of course i didn’t get much of a break before someone _else_ started messing with the timeline.” He gave her a scolding look that melted into a curious scowl, something occurring to him for the first time. “hey,” he presented her with another pocky stick. His was shorter. “how long have you been doing these resets anyway?”

She shrugged. “Oh I don’t know. Chara’s brother was running this show long before I ever got here. Guess you never realized the anomaly could be more than one person, huh?” She tapped her chin in thought. “But I’d say I have probably been doing this for about…” The words died on her lips. Her mouth felt dry all of a sudden.

She didn’t know. She honestly didn’t know.

She saw a look of sympathy flash across Sans’s eyes. “that bad, huh?”

“I don’t know.” She finally whispered, the realization hitting her in an immovable, impersonal kind of way. It was like running into a brick wall. There was no twist of the knife in this revelation. No bitter, personal sniping at her emotions. There was only the cold knowing that this was how things were.

 “I honestly don’t know anymore. I lost count of how many times I have had to reload or reset. The travel time alone between the Ruins and Hotland could last for weeks between resets. Then there were all of the false starts, dead ends, hellish fights…” Her voice trailed off, she was staring at Sans but didn’t quite see him anymore.

Years. She had been trapped down here for _years_. Years of unending torment bottled up all nice and pretty in a featureless day.

Sans stood up and flipped off the energy field. He leaned forward and gave her hand a pat. “you ok?”

“I didn’t realize how long I have been stuck here.”

“do you know how old you are?”

She paused, then shook her head in defeat. She felt like she was sinking into the floor. “No.”

He rocked back a bit. “that’s rough buddy. if it’s any consolation, i’m in the same boat. all i know is i’m  a hell of a lot older than everyone thinks i am and a hell of a lot younger than i feel.”

The elevator door opened and the skitter and tap of claws helped disperse the weight of their new revelation, which had begun to weigh on them like an impersonal, crushing blue attack. They both looked up to watch Alphys hurry into the room.

 “A-are you ok? I heard th-that things didn’t go well. I just saw th-the queen. She looks r-really upset. Undyne s-s-said things got out of h-hand.”

Sans stretched, joints popping. “yeah they did. but we are ok now. rain’s got a handle on things again. sorry, i should probably go back up top soon and check on tori again. i don’t think she was prepared for just how much chara has changed. let her know i’m smoothing things out with the kid for her.”

“O-ok.” Alphys’s tail was wrapping itself around her leg in worry. “y-you don’t think she will t-try and get me fired, do you?”

Sans waved away the possibility. “nah. if she did that rain would have nowhere to go. besides, the humans' got us covered. right?”

Rain poked her head out into the hall and nodded. She must have looked like a mess because Alphys gave her a sympathetic look and bobbed her head. “Ok. If you say so. Are you two going to need a minute?”

“yeah. hate to admit it but we got some stuff that’s long overdue to be mulled over after what happened with tori.”

Alphys fidgeted, looking from side to side. “Is t-the field not working again?”

“nah. i shut it off.”

“Oh.”

“it’s ok al. i got this.” He winked.

She looked at Rain with a little less sympathy and a little more wariness. “A-are you sure you are okay with um, you know… do you trust her? A-after what just happened?”

Sans gave her an apprising look. “from the tip of my longest distal phalanx to the bottom of my metacarpal.”

Rain blinked, not quite sure what bones those were. “Oh, thank you Sans. That means a lot to me. I think.”

Alphys seemed far less impressed. She practically gives him the stink eye. “Ok, well, I’m going to send Undyne to check on you then i-if you don’t come back in ten minutes ok? I r-r-really need you to talk to Toriel.”

Rain's budding smile vanished into skepticism. Maybe it hadn't been a compliment.

He waved her away. “ten minutes. got it. like i said- let her know i’m smoothing things out with the human.”

Alphys scurried back into the elevator with a nod.

He looked at Rain, curious and a little cautious. His previous hostility was gone. But that new look of sadness wasn’t much better. “can i ask another question?”

She bobbed her head.

“why? why did you come here? ican’t imagine that a mountain famous for swallowing children has a friendly reputation topside.”

She held out her hand, a silent demand to see his pocky. It was shorter that hers. Damn.

She looked away. Guilt and shame crawling up her throat. She had never told anyone. Not even Papyrus. Killing yourself to save other people when you have control of the timeline was easy enough to explain. It was simple. It was noble even. It didn’t have any lasting consequences. It was a minor inconvenience. If she died it wasn’t the end of anything.

But back then, when she had jumped, it hadn’t been like that. How she wound up in the Underground had not been brave or noble or selfless. It was simply supposed to be the end.

“The girl who fell was looking for something.” She explained quietly, her eyes fixated on her toes.

“did she find it?” 

“Does it matter what she found? The girl who fell down here _died_. I don’t remember her age or her name. I don’t know her favorite color or the name of the college she tried to attend. I barely even remember what she looked like. She certainly didn’t look like _this_.” She gestured to her scarred skin and pale hair, which was regaining patches of red. “She’s just a bad memory now so who cares if she got what she wanted. As for the thing that took her place? She’s still looking for something.” She concluded bitterly.

“oh.” The way he said it made it clear that he knew why she had climbed Ebott. He knew why she had fallen and why she avoided talking about it. He had probably always known. Sans was pretty observant after all. He didn’t press her about it though. She wasn’t ready. “and what was it that that made rain so determined? what made rain wake up when the old her no longer could?”

“I was looking for someone.”

“who?”

Rain picked a new pocky stick. Sans did not seem to be amused when she ended up with the shortest one, assuming she would use it to doge the question.

 “Hah. I win.” She took a deep breath. “Oh, don’t look so jaded. I don’t doge questions like _you_ do. In fact I am willing to go a little off the rails here and answer your question with my question. I have been wondering this for a while now anyway. Since you are a sentry and you apparently took your job seriously at some point, I know I won’t like the answer- but I want you to be honest with me.”

He shrank back a little without knowing it, hiding in the folds of his coat again. He suddenly had a very good idea what she was about to ask him. “or you could, you know, maybe not ask the question? we could call it a day.”

She shook her head and braced herself. “The human that fell before I did, the sixth soul; did you ever meet him?”

Sans pulled out a comb and began to fiddle with it to buy himself some time.

“Sans?”

“…I knew em.”

“What happened to him? Did you…?”

He looked her in the eye. The white glow of his eyes was filled with a haunting kind of regret. “no. no i didn’t do it. asgore always finishes the job. but i was the who caught him. sort of.” He took a deep breath. “you two were friends, right?”

“Best friends.” She said softly, eyes sliding away from his.

He nodded. “you two are a lot alike you know. do you really wanna know how it ended?”

“I do.” She closed her eyes. “It’s time for me to let him go.”

***

Most monsters did not make it a goal to keep track of time. Beyond knowing what days they worked and which ones they had off in a given week, most were content to let the months slip by unnoticed; only ever making special note of events such as a get-together or a business meeting. Hell, aside from the more distant parts of the Underground such as Snowdin, which lacked any natural lighting and thus had a few hours of artificial illumination wired up to them manually, the majority for the Underground lacked anything resembling a day anyway. There were no seasons either.

Thus one could be forgiven for letting a year or five slip by unnoticed within the cozy monotony of the featureless passage of time.

Sans however, had been paying close attention to how much time had passed. _Anyone_ who had been on duty the day that the human had fallen was still paying close attention to how long it had been since The Fall.

Two years. Two long, quiet, uneventful years. For two years the kid had vanished into the shadows and stayed there.

At first pandemonium and the unbridled excitement at the prospect of obtaining the sixth soul had consumed the Underground. Every TV channel and newspaper gave day-by-day updates on fabled sightings and rumors as the elusive human managed to evade all attempt made to capture him.

Everyone claimed to have seen him or knew someone who had. Yet the kid had managed to slip past every sentry station, bottle neck and check point in the Underground without much more than a few footprints to hint at him having ever been there at all. He had even managed to give Undyne, the captain of the Royal Guard, the slip.

And to no one else’s surprise but his own, the human had even managed to evade Sans.

Eventually sightings grew few and far between. Facts became rumor and then somewhere between Waterfall and the capitol, the sightings compleatly stopped. Everyone assumed the kid had met an untimely end; drowning in a river or falling into the magma before anyone could take his soul.

Most monsters were willing to leave it at that and move on.

And then _this_ had happened.

Two years later Sans was selling slightly illegal ‘dogs on the city corner when he got a frantic message from Undyne, telling him the human had reappeared and was heading straight for the castle. None of the other guards would be in position in time. So Sans had gone in alone.

And so that's exactly what he did.

“heya.” He purred, stepping out from behind his pillar when he notice a shy head poke out into the hall. “you sure took your sweet time getting here, huh?”

The human spotted him and crept into view. “Uh, hi.”

Sans tried to hide the hiss of shock in his breath. He nearly took a step back in surprise. He knew a lot about humans. More than most. After the human ambassador plan had gone belly up, the lab had had to reinvent their reasons to pursue time travel. They had been faced with the choice of teaching fighters how to understand and operate a time machine, or teaching the operator of a time machine how to kill.

They had made their choice and Sans had made his.

But, grim as it may be, he had only ever been prepared to kill the weak, the young and the sick. The ones that a monster could take on alone and still hope to beat so long as they knew how to fight dirty.

Unfortunately for Sans the human standing before him now looked like he was in damn good shape and he _sure as hell_ wasn’t a kid anymore.

Two years.

He had grown up in those two years.

He was tall. Maybe even as tall as Papyrus. His olive skin had refused to pale despite the lack of sunlight. He had a thick head of dark brown curls and a long metal rod slung across his wide-set shoulders. He was muscular but not bulky.

An awkward teen had fallen into their mist and grown into a young man.

Young men were so much harder to kill.

Sans tried to prevent himself from thinking about it too much but it wasn’t working.  He tried to bury his doubt under stalling words. “was wondering when you’d show up. the rest of em thought you were dead. tripped over a ledge or somthin'.” He grinned, sly and grim. His soul was racing, magic and adrenaline coursing through his bones like electricity as he tried to buy himself some time. His vision was already beginning to tint itself blue as he ran through a list of vital points to aim for. He wasn’t sure if he could take this guy on by himself anymore but damn it all if he wasn’t going to try.

He recalled all those charts, all those lessons in the lab, all those weak spots humans had.

_Heart, lungs, head..._

Alright. He could do this. He knew this stuff.

_Joints, groin, eyes…_

The human began to approach him.

“betcha thought you were being real smart.” His eye flashed yellow and a pair of blasters melted out of the shadows on either side of him. “but buddy, i ain’t no fool. i’ve been waiting.”

“Hey, you don’t have to-”

Sans sent an array of bones shooting out after him. Like the teeth of a hungry maw they snapped up from the floor while a pair of sharpened femurs streaked through the air at eye level.

The human pulled a long polished metal rod from its place slung across his back. With practiced ease he rolled to the side, avoiding the teeth and knocking aside one of the bones just before it could hit him in the face. He darted back against a third attack and used the pole to vault over a forth.

“We don’t have to do this. I didn’t come here to fight you!”

“well you obviously didn’t come here to have a harmless little chat with the king, now did ya?” The blasters fired, a band of burning light streaking out of the door and singeing the archway.

“That’s exactly what I ca-” He threw himself to the side, covering his head as the blast shot past him. He was up and dogging another row of attacks as soon as the beam winked out.

This guy could move. Mobility seemed to be his thing so Sans switched it up a bit and threw a few blue attacks at him to knock him off kilter.

The human hissed when one singed his shoulder, burning a hole in his shirt.

“Ok! Look, I give up. I surrender!” He dropped his rod and knelt in front of Sans, hands on his head and eyes squeezed shut.

Sans faltered, hand held out in the middle of commanding another blast. “…what?”

“I give up.”

He lowered his hand before the human could notice it was shaking. “what are you playing at, human?” He demanded, uneasy.

The human opened his eyes and looked around like someone else would appear to help him out with the answer. “I don’t want to fight. I, uh, I come in peace ok? So I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hurt me.” His voice was a lot softer than one would expect. For something as notoriously deadly as a full grown human, Sans was surprised to find that that he sounded scared.

The guy’s hands were shaking, just like his. "It’s alright. Look, I’m unarmed.” He slid the rod across the floor so that it stopped at the skeleton’s feet.

Sans looked down at it, still a little lost for words. The rod had been polished and decorated with little designs etched into it along with a couple of names that sounded vaguely familiar.

It wasn’t a weapon. It was a walking stick.

Sans let out an exasperated sigh and frowned, the light in his eyes coming back just a little. He hated this. Everyone always warned you to make things quick so you didn’t have time to feel bad about it. That had been drilled into his head countless times during training.

He had been ready to kill him. He was _still_ prepared to kill him. But he had kind been hoping the guy would fight back so it wouldn’t bother him as much.

“why are you here, man? if you didn’t want to get hurt you were better off keeping your head down and staying where you were. you were obviously doing pretty well in whatever hole you were hiding in.”

The human took a deep breath. It took him a moment to get the words out of his mouth. He had ducked his head and his voice trembled. “I have come to give myself up.”

Sans blinked, certain he hadn’t heard him right. “uh, come again?”

“I said I’m ready to give myself up!” He looked at him then, eyes burning with a sense of Determination that masked the fear. “I’m ready. I- just- I don’t know? Take me to Asgore or something so we can get this over with.” He wiped at his eyes and only then did Sans realize he was crying. "I know I can’t go home unless I kill someone. But I can’t. I just can’t, ok? I have lived down here for over two years. I _know_ these people. They took me into their homes. They kept me fed. They treated me like family. And the king- he’s a good guy. I know he is. He’s just… good people can do bad things. The Underground needs him. I can’t take him away from everyone just so I can go back outside.”

Sans looked away and swore under his breath. “you should have stayed in hiding. i can’t let you go see the king. even if you are telling the truth. cause’ your right, the people need that big fur ball. and unfortunately it’s my job to make sure potential threats are dealt with before they can ever reach him. so now that you’re here, i have to follow through.” He began to raise his hand again. “sorry pal, I can tell you’re not ready for this. but now that you’re here, i can’t let you leave.”

“No one is ever really ready for _this_.” He snapped, flinging his arms wide. “No one ever grows up preparing themselves to be a human sacrifice! I keep telling myself that it will be like ripping off a band aid. You just have to buck up and do it!” He cradled his head in his hands and shook his head. “You don’t know what it’s like to be the only human trapped down here. Every day I check the news, terrified that another human has fallen down. Because I know that if I don’t die, then someone else will have to take my place. How sick is that?”

He wiped away a few tears with the sleeve of his shirt and smiled. “And I can’t let that happen. I grew up in a town just a few miles away from this mountain. Chances are I will know whoever falls down here. I will have grown up with them, or at least know their parents.”

Sans tilted his head, disbelieving. “buddy, do you have any idea what asgore will do once he gets seven souls? the plan is to wage war on humanity.”

The human looked past Sans and into the room waiting beyond. His watery eyes held a gentle kind of understanding in them as he looked past the archway. “I know. Everyone says that’s what he would do, but I don’t think he will. If he wanted to do that I think he could have done it by now. When the time comes, I don’t think he will have it in him. And I think you know that too.” He took another deep, bracing breath and slowly rose to his feet. “So please, let me talk to him. Let me help him. Let me help the Underground.”

Sans’s hand shot back up and pulled his soul into view, bathing it in blue. The human staggered forward a step under the weight but didn’t try to run. “heh. well you got a better heart than i do, kid.”

The human looked him up and down, soft brown eyes still watery. “You-you’re Sans, right?” He smiled a little. “You shouldn’t say things like that about yourself. They’re not true.  The people who took me in really like you. They buy hotdogs from you every other day.” He shuffled from side to side, staring at their reflection in the polished tile. “Even though you think you have to do this right now, I still believe those people when they told me you were a good guy. So please, let me go see him.”

Sans’s soul continued to thrum, pulsing faster and faster as beads of sweat dotted his skull. “buddy, you don’t know the half of it. but i appreciate the optimism.” Several more bones rose up from the floor.

The human squeezed his eyes shut.

“Sans?”

The bones hesitated against the call of the deep, familiar voice. Sans spun around and the human opened his eyes.

Asgore was standing in the hallway, his broad figure almost completely blocking out the view of what was on the other side. “What are you doing here, my friend? You seem to have cracked my floor.” His gaze came to rest on the face of the captured human and his eyes became sad and distant. “Oh.” He said quietly, bowing his head. “I see. Sans, thank you. You may release him.”

Sans cast a faithless glance over his shoulder. “uh, you sure about that?”

“If they have come this far then they must be very Determined. I would not wish for you to be injured in a battle that is rightfully mine to bear.”

Sans released him with some small reluctance, shoulders sagging in a sense of relief he had not known he had been praying for. “yeah. sure. whatever you say boss. your call i guess.”

The soft golden eyes of the king fell upon the boy.  “What is your name, human?”

“Daniel, sir. Daniel Hearting.”

Sans looked at Daniel. Suddenly he did not seem like such a tall and imposing man. He looked like a scared, lost kid with his hands balled into fists to keep them from shaking.

A twinge of guilt tugged at him and he looked away before it could take hold.

Asgore smiled to himself. “Hm, Daniel. It is a good name. A strong name. Perhaps it will grant you the strength needed to cross the barrier.”

“I’m not here to fight you, your majesty. I’m here to give myself up. I want monsters to go free. And I don’t want you to have to kill someone else in my place.” In a quiet, sheepish voice he ducked his head and added: “The monsters stuck in the Underground are my friends. They deserve better than his.”

Asgore turned his back to them, staring into the hall from whence he came. He bowed his head in shame and sighed. “I see. Then I assume you have made your peace?” He asked, voice more stern than Sans was used to hearing.

The human cleared his throat and glanced at Sans. He sniffed and nodded. “I-I have. But I want you to promise me that anyone who helped me up until now won’t get in trouble for it. Promise me you won’t hurt any of my friends.”

Asgore rubbed at his face, eyes squeezed shut and his and voice full of sorrow. “You have my word, Daniel.”

Hesitant at first but a little more emboldened in light of the king’s promise, Daniel produced several envelopes from the folds of his tattered coat. “I, um, I have some letters. Can you make sure they find the right people?”

He king’s head tilted in the skeleton’s direction. “Sans?”

Sans gave a start. “oh. y-yeah. sure. i can handle that.”

The king gave them one last sad look before bowing back down the tunnel again. “I will be waiting inside when you are ready.” Just barely audible against its own echo, they could hear him murmur, “what a shame... It’s such a beautiful day outside.”

Daniel turned to Sans, hesitant in his approach. “Here. these are for Mrs. Torvett. I think you know her. She’s the one that took me in.”

Sans jaw set at he reached out to accept the letters. “yeah. i know her.” Sans liked Mrs. Torvett. She was a cat monster who had recently opened a successful bakery and stopped by for bad jokes and hot cats three times a week.

“and this one goes to the Ruins, if you can find a way in. The ones on the bottom are for my friends, parents or next of kin- for when you get out.”

Despite everything they had just been through, Daniel rested a hand on Sans’s shoulder in thanks and forced a smile before beginning his one way march into the throne room where yellow flowers had learned to enjoy the taste of red.

Sans watched him go, feeling small and helpless despite the well of magic still resting at his fingertips. “sorry kid. wish it didn’t have to be this way.” He managed, his voice seeming far weaken than he was used to.

Daniel paused in the archway, turning to face him once more with tears streaming down his face. “It’s ok. Its ok, I understand… and I forgive you.”

Sans delivered his letters later that day.

The next morning he asked if he could be moved to a sentry station outside of the capital.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In one of the very first chapters Rain said that Daniel probably died with a smile on his face as he told the monsters that killed him that he forgave them. Looks like she was right.  
> (hehehe my sister crid her eyes out on this chapter. >:3c )  
> ~*~*~  
> For those wondering about what "from the tip of my distal phalanx to the bottom of my metacarpal" means- Sans was basically saying he only hand enough trust in her to stretch the length of his middle finger.  
> ~*~*~*~*~  
> Welp i think i only have one (maybe two?) edited chapters left before i run out and need to edit more. I really hope i can get that new computer soon. T_T


	47. The Decay of Chara/ The Decay of Trust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~~The Decay of Chara~~ / **The Decay of Trust**
> 
> They dug too deep  
> ~*~*~*~*  
> ((Wow thank you guys for all of the comments on the last chapter! :D ))

There was a lot of aftermath for everyone to deal with that night. Sans left Rain alone to think, a strange sort of feeling clinging to his chest. It made him feel lighter but brittle. The stale air of the lab tasted fresher but it made him dizzy. He had shed a burden that had been chewing at his mind ever since he had learned there was a connection between the two humans.

She had helped scrape away at one of his oldest, most heavy memories. It did not fix anything but knowing that he had gotten to tell his story to someone at least _once_ without fear of them forgetting felt somewhat liberating, in a guilty sort of way.

It also made him feel vulnerable. He usually wasn’t much of a talker. And to open up to _her_ of all people was a risk. It felt like he had allowed her to stare into his soul, the ribs that usually shielded it from view feeling as thin and brittle as eggshells in her presence.

Although it could not be said that Rain took all of his confessions in stride, she still fared better than he had expected. Better than she herself had hopped. The death of her one and only childhood friend still ached but she had had many years to swallow the pain by now. Her anger had cooled into solemn acceptance. Her cries for vengeance had long ago stopped, replaced only with a tired question of _why_.

The grudge she had once held against those who had taken him from her had been replaced instead with a somewhat cold kind of understanding. 

Sometimes bad people do good things.

Sometimes good people do bad things. 

It was not her place to judge who was what when she herself did not know in what category she belonged in anymore. So instead of sorrow or rage she felt only an exhausted sort of peace at the end of their visit. It was like falling asleep after a good cry or getting up to stretch sore muscle after remaining idle for too long. It hurt, but in a good way. Besides, Daniel wasn’t exactly gone. Not yet. There was still a chance she could still see him again, if only to say goodbye.

Sans came to wake her sometime in the late morning. She was surprised to find him in the lab so early. He was back to his usual self by then. Casual, funny and distant in that careful, deliberate sort of way that most people didn’t quite pick up on. He came to let her know what had transpired overnight because while Rain had managed to crawl away relatively unscathed from the catastrophe that was her reunion with Toriel, the rest of their little group had not fared as well.

Toriel was still upset. Deeply so. To have so much taken from her over the years and then have a single spark of hope dangled in front of her only to have it spit back her kindness with loathing, was a hard thing for her to understand.

She had gone back to Snowdin to pack her things and leave. She needed time.

Undyne on the other hand, was contemplating the recent and unintended revelation that this whole operation was done in complete secrecy; their efforts hidden even from the king she so loved. She was seriously contemplating coming clean to him. She was adamant that he would understand and maybe even bump up their funding. She seemed to not quite grasp the horrible position such a revelation would put the king in. That or she didn’t want to face it.

Alphys was a wreck of course; a bundle of jabbering nerves and evasive answers. Things were really starting to pile up and push her to the breaking point. Sans was willing to admit to Rain that Alphys didn’t do well with long term secrets. Perhaps in her desperation, she had been a little too optimistic about Toriel being able to fix all their problems.

Sans didn’t say or intentionally imply anything but when he came down to give her his little update that morning, she got the feeling that he and Alphys had been arguing recently. There was a little more force put into keeping his grin in place today and his words seemed to have a little more bite to them that she was exspecting.

Sans seemed kind of restless too. It was an odd look on him. Sans, the monster so lazy he had worked out a way to use his DT to cut out all the leg work involved in traveling: _restless_.

“You have somewhere else you need to be?” Rain interjected after Sans looked down the hall for the fourth time in the middle of a semi casual show of pacing.

“sorry.”

She stood up from her spot in front of the electric barrier, its energy painting her worry with a dozen different shades of blue. “What’s wrong?”

"asked al about the missing dt again." The light in his eyes flickered like the dying bulbs overhead. “I finally managed to pin her down and get her to tell me that asriel is a _goddamn flower_.”

Rain blinked in surprise, flinching a little at the darkness pooling in Sans's sockets. “Wait, she didn’t tell you when the DT started going missing? Sans, Flowey is the one that helped Papyrus find me.” She flung a hand wide, gesturing as if all the deeds of the past were laid out in front of them like convictions. “He’s been manipulating him for longer than I have been down here to notice!” A real edge of panic and anger began to sharpen her voice. “I assumed you knew. I told Alphys everything so you would be on your guard!”

He nodded, rubbing his head and sighing. He knew all this already- but only because he had just finished wringing the information out of Alphys a few minutes ago. Realizing he could have asked Rain for the answers days ago if he had not been so set on avoiding conversations with her, did not do much to brighten his mood. “i appreciate your honesty kid. at least one us never shies away from ugly truths.” He growled, cursing both himself and Alphys’s kneejerk reaction to keep secrets.

They were pals. He and Alphys went way back. He had never blabbed about anything she had wanted to keep to herself. Yet she had kept this from him just because she hadn’t wanted to admit to another failed experiment? “and here i was, playing the fool, thinking this flower my brother kept talking about was just some dumb joke someone was playing on him with echo flowers.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “i hope you understand that I’m going to have to disappear for a while. with tori gone and undyne spending most of her free time here, Papyrus is going to be an open target for whatever the weed has planned. i need to keep an eye on him. talk to him. figure out how to keep him safe.”

Rain shook her head, disbelieving. “I told her everything I knew so you guys wouldn’t be in the dark! I can’t believe she would do this.”

 _“I can.”_ Chara quipped from the back seat of their mind, where she had been gleefully consuming all the gossip in silence.

Rain was pacing her room in tight, frustrated laps now. “What the hell is going on with her? What is Alphys hiding? What _else_ is she hiding?”

Sans held out a hand to calm her. The blue light of the barrier pressed dark shadows against his joints and shone against his cheekbones in stark contrast to the dimming glimmer of his eyes. “alright. get ahold of yourself. you gotta promise me you won’t badger her while i’m gone.”

“Why the hell not?” She snapped.

“because of that right there. i don’t need you getting riled up and siccing chara on her. i’ll get back to you once i know Paps is safe. then we can have another round of pocky to clear everything up. but for now alphys is enough of a wreck as it is.” His voiced dropped a little and the light in his eyes made a reappearance. His brow creased with traces of worry. “she’s, uh, she’s not exactly in the best of health right now.”

“best of health?”

Sans shifted again, looking like he was trying to keep himself from going back to unwanted pacing. “look, monsters aren’t like humans. if you guys lose all your hope you can keep going somehow. your bodies won’t let you die.”

Rain dropped eye contact, that guiltily little ball of shame from last night rising up in her belly. 

Luckily Sans didn’t hone in on it. He pressed on, granting her reprieve. “but monsters aint like that. our bodies are held together by magic. our magic comes from and is attuned to our soul. our health depends on its emotional state. so if a monster loses hope, they can fall down. they lose the ability to hold their body together and they fall apart.”

At that point several things clicked for Rain all at once. The reason Sans was so weak, Alphys’s surprise when she has seen that Rain only had twenty HP, HP and Hope more or less being considered the same thing to monsters...

She looked down the hall as if expecting Alphys to be sitting in the shadows, frail and crumbling. “How much does she have?”

Sans shrugged. “dunno. but it’s not a lot so i’d appreciate it if you didn’t harass her, ok? i don’t want her to lose any more hope if i can help it. don’t want her doing anything _rash_ either. so just lay low for a few days, ok? i will swing by again soon.”

“Promise?”

“things will settle back into routine before you know it.” He turned to take his leave but she called him back.

“Sans?”

“yeah?”

“What about you?”

“what about me?”

“How much Hope do you have?”

He winked and pointed a finger at her. “now that’s a rather personal question i don’t feel particularly inclined to answer. but your concern is both noted and appreciated- if unnecessary. i have so much dt floating around inside of me that i probably couldn’t fall down even if i wanted to.”

 _“One.”_ Chara giggled, amused that Rain had finally figured it out after so long. _“He has one hp. One Hope._ _Didn't you ever notice?_ _There is one thing left in this world that he still cares about. "  
_

Sans glanced back over his shoulder while he waited for the elevator door to open. “hey, if flowey does show up and make a mess of things, if he gets to my brother first...i can count on you if something happens, right? you will bring him back?”

“Of course.” Rain promised without any hesitation. 

The taunt lines of his smile eased a little. “thanks.”

_Chara smiled. “And that thing is Papyrus.”  
_

***

Maybe a day passed. If it did, it did so in a dull, limping sort of fashion like some sort of wounded animal waiting for death. Sans’s absence really didn’t have that big of an impact on her since she rarely saw him much anyway and when she did  see him he mostly came to fill her head with bad jokes and evasive words.

What did gnaw at her however was Alphys.

She had not come down to talk to her yet. Maybe she knew that Rain was reaching the end of her rope with all these secrets. Just when she had finally gotten Sans to open his damn mouth, Alphys seemed to be clamming up and acting like words were crimes.

Usually they got along quite well. Alphys was Rain’s primary source of company in a given day. The shy scientist would often check in with her over the intercom or at least play some music for her throughout the day. Less so since the tea-punch incident had messed up the intercoms but an effort was still made now and then.

Alphys would also join her for lunch every other day and even convinced Undyne to let her stay long enough to watch old anime DvDs with them from time to time if she was taking a break from working on one of her many finicky machines.

But now? Now there was nothing. Dead silence. No check-ins, no lunch visits, no anime. Not even Undyne had bothered to check in on her yet to call her a punk.

They forgot to let her out for breakfast and a shower in the morning and her lunch break passed by unnoticed as well.

Were things really that bad outside of her four bleak walls? Had she really messed up that badly with Toriel?

Maybe she should reload to before the queen ever came and call the whole thing off. Then she could talk to Alphys and explain things to Sans on her own terms.

She began to feel uneasy. The shadows that rested up against the corners of the lab started to feel less empty in the absence of anything else worth focusing on. She was starting to think of that face in the cracks again.

Then, finally, probably late enough to rename dinner into a midnight snack, the field shut off and she was allowed to walk free again.

“About time.” She stretched her sore limbs and popped her back before heading for the elevator. “Any requests for tonight?”

A bored Chara drifted in lazy circles within their mind. _“Can you make a pie?”_

“Pie? For dinner? I’m in the mood for something easier and more fulfilling than that.”

_“I want pie.”_

She sighed, running through a list of things she knew would be available in the break room. “I’ll see what I can do. But only if you don’t make a fuss over dinner.” She was probably going to doom herself to another bowl of noodles again. And then she would have to MacGyver a pie. Somehow.

_“And don’t use butterscotch.”_

“I won’t.”

_“Don’t put mushrooms in the ramen this time either.”_

“Fine. But I’m putting in the onion whether you like it or not.”

Their nose wrinkled in Chara’s displeasure. _“Also lets burn the granola bars they keep in the cupboard.”_

“Let’s not.”

_“Burn them!”_

Rain threw up her arms in frustration as they stepped into the elevator. “Chara I swear to god if you set something on fire we are going to bed without pie!”

Before Chara could dig her heels in to argue, the elevator door slammed shut.

Rain flinched, hand hovering over the button that would take them up to the break room. “That didn’t sound good.”

As if her words had been a trigger for round two, the elevator began to shudder, a high-pitched whine starting overhead as the single overhead light began to flash and splutter until sparks began to dance around them like some angry version of confetti released to celebrate their bad luck.

Rain lurched forward; both of them cursing as they tried to get back out but the door wouldn’t budge.

They started to descend deeper into the lab; at first in slow lurching movements that forced them to drop to their hands and knees to avoid being knocked around. Then their decent began to speed up, the whine growing louder and the light bulb spurting into its brightest and dimmest hues in rapid succession. They were in a borderline freefall.

They flattened themselves against the floor, every part of their body tense as they braced themselves for whatever was fated to happen; adrenaline and the fear of the unknown chasing after them in their helpless nosedive deeper into the earth’s crust.

After several seconds of chaos there was a loud snap and the elevator stopped like a hitched breath.

They blacked out.

Rain awoke to hear herself already groaning as Chara took control. Six, maybe twelves seconds had passed but she felt like she had just woken up after a night of drinking and fistfights.

Chara rubbed at their head and wiped blood from their nose. “Let’s heal this.” Their nose itched and bones popped back into place before Rain could agree or disagree. “That’s better.” She grunted, rolling their shoulders and looking around. The elevator door had slid open again to allow them some illusion of blessed freedom by granting them a new room to be caged in.

The elevator light finally went out, shattering in a shower of burnt orange sparks and tinkling glass.

 _“Let me have control.”_ Rain insisted. _  
_

“Shut up. I’m not killing anything yet.” Chara murmured. “And something interesting is finally happening. Have you been down here before? I don’t remember this room.” 

Rain scanned the area. Everything had a decent layer of dust clinging to it. There were several fake potted plants scattered about the area in failed attempts to make the hallways more lively and there was  what looked like a broken vending machine sitting off in the corner. Whether thanks to the poor lighting of a single struggling bulb somewhere farther down the hall or the familiar blue haze of being a passenger in her own mind once again, the whole area came off looking darker and far more dull than the upper levels ever had.

It was like the darkness itself had seeped into the walls and floor like some sort of sentient grime; painting everything a gloomy gray color that did not settle well against the memory of the bright, garish colors Alphys often decorated the upper floors with. It was almost like the two halves of the lab had been built by two completely different people.

_“No. it doesn’t look familiar. Who knows how many levels this thing has anyway”_

Chara glanced at the dial at the top of the elevator. “Curious. It says floor twelve. That’s where they keep the Determination extractor, right?”

_“I don’t remember seeing any of this the last time I was down here.”_

“They have more than one working elevator you idiot. They probably brought you in from a different opening.”

The air felt unusually warm and heavy, like it was alive and pressing in on them. Rain leaned back, tugging at their feet. _“We shouldn’t be here.”_

Chara smirked in taunting but on the inside she reflected Rain’s own wariness. “Starting to remember what happened last time we were down here? I thought you convinced yourself it was all just a bad dream.”

_“We should go back.”_

Chara made a show of jabbing at various buttons on the elevator panel. “We can’t. It seems to be out of order. If you want to get back out then perhaps we should look for the elevator you came down in last time.”

Before Rain could object, Chara sent them creeping out into the borderline pitch-black hall. She tried several of the lights but none of them worked. They could barely see where they were going, most of thigh light being provided by the glowing screens of nearly forgotten machinery.

They came to a door with multiple keyholes carved into it like different colored runes. It looked promising so of course it was locked.

They peeked into the room on the right; where the lights died away and relented to the darkness. The bulb in the hallway was just enough for them to make out the faded blankets tucked into several rows of beds, each one identical to the one Rain had upstairs. In the warm dark the soft whisper of some distant set of fans made it sound as if the room was breathing; a troop of ghosts sleeping under abandoned covers.

They slipped back into the hall and went back the way they had come. They felt a sudden pressing need not to wake the empty room.

They headed left down the next hall. A single room waited for them at the end. The sharp blue-white spotlight of a single working computer monitor allowed them to see small motes of dust drifting slowly across the empty space; wandering in and out of the ghostly shadows of abandoned equipment.

Each tower of machinery loomed against the corners of the room in a hap hazarded way that hinted at abandonment and painted the walls with ugly, clawed shadows that moved with the flicker of the screen. The only sounds in the room were the whisper of their own breath and the steady drip of a leaky faucet.

Their steps hesitated at the threshold. The room had a strange odor to it. Like the burnt smell of freshly filed nails. 

There were three elevated tables lined up against the wall, each one displaying straps that both Rain and Chara were familiar with but not happy to see.

Rain’s eyes drifted around the room while Chara examined the table. _“Most of this looks like medical equipment.”_

Chara’s hand brushed the table and she pulled away with a grimace. “It’s sticky. And cold. How is it still cold? This place practically has its belly in the magma.”

She squinted against the bright light of the monitor when it pinged in greeting and pulled up a file for them the moment she came within arm’s reach.

“Well would you look at that. It looks like we won’t have to go hunting for answers after all. They seem to want to come to us.” Chara leaned over the words, eyes darting across them in a greedy attempt to consume as many as possible in case Rain tried to pull her away but to her pleasant surprise Rain joined her instead.

They tapped a file labeled ENTRY1:

_This is it... Time to do what the king_ _has asked me to do. I will create the power to free us all. I will unleash the power of the soul._

_The barrier is locked by soul power. Unfortunately, this power cannot be recreated artificially. Soul power can only be derived from what was once living. So, to create more, we will have to use what we have now... The souls of  monsters._ _But extracting a soul from a living monster would require incredible power. Besides being impractical, doing so would instantly destroy the soul's host. And, unlike the persistent souls of humans... The souls of most monsters disappear immediately upon death._

_If only I could make a monster's soul last..._

They tapped away at the brief entries one by one. Each one adding to a growing sense of worry in Rain’s gut. Each one unfolding to tell a darker tale then the last, which only served to set Chara aflame with a bitter sort of burning triumph.

Off in the corner the dripping faucet seemed to be keeping pace with their racing heart.

“Still think she can be trusted?” Chara sneered, glaring down at an entry that described in morbid detail the melting processes of Alphys’s last experiment.

Rain reeled back in horror. She had known Alphys was hiding things, but this? This was going too far. Those monsters had families. They were still alive. Rain was unhinged with just _one_ other voice stuck in her head. Some of these monsters had melted together in literal _piles_ of grotesque, misshapen lumps. Seven, twelve, _sixteen_ sentient minds fused together!

_“No. No, no, no. This can’t be right. This can’t be her. This can’t be real.”_

“Just because it’s bad doesn’t mean it’s a nightmare, Rain. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean you get to wake up. So take a nice long look. You think you are her special little snowflake? Do you really think you are going to end up any better than they did?” She jabbed an accusing finger at the screen. “Because you won’t. Even special snowflakes eventually melt into identical raindrops; stuck in a puddle with all the other droplets until even they can’t tell themselves apart.” She glared at the screen, which held a documentation of a snow drake who had sprouted several wailing, dripping faces that had nothing but shadows left for eyes. “Half the things she’s doing to us she did to them. She’s using all the same machinery. She’s keeping us all nice a secret so that when she finally messes up she can try and sweep us under the rug like she did with them.”

A new file popped up without a prompt. This one was different than the others. It had a little smiley face on it and all the text was in red. It was simply named: **_:)_** _for you:_

Some some small measure of reluctance, they opened the file.

_We'll need a vessel to wield the monster souls when the time comes. After all, a monster cannot absorb the souls of other monsters. Just as a human cannot absorb a human soul. So then... What about something that's neither human nor monster?_

_I've chosen a candidate. I haven't told Asgore yet, because I want to surprise him with it. In the center of his garden,_ _there's something special. The first golden flower that grew before all the others. The flower from the outside world._ _It appeared just before the queen_ _left. I wonder... What happens when something without a soul gains the will to live?_

 

There was a bad taste left in their mouth now; bitter and thick. Chara seemed just as unhappy with this revelation as Rain was.

So Alphys had had a hand in that too. This was why she had tried to keep the whole Flowey thing under wraps. She didn’t want them to know she was the one who had brought him back.

They stared at the page, reading the notes over and over again as if doing so would desensitize them to their meaning; all the while the splatter and drip of the sink carried on, a metronome to their silence.

“So that is how you came back, dear brother.” Chara murmured. “You pitiful creature. You are even less of your former self than I am.”

Gradually both Rain and Chara became aware that a new sound had started to creep up on them during their reading.

There were whispers. Several voices all talking at once just around the corner.

Or were they coming from behind them? It made the hair stand up on the back of their neck.

The sink began to splutter, spewing out something that looked and sounded like clotted milk.

Chara backed away as the substance oozed out of the sink and collected into a growing heap on the floor, bubbling and rising up; the smell of burnt batteries choking the room.

Another pile oozed out onto the floor after the first.

Then another.

All around them the machinery began to glitch and cry out in static. 

The terror they had felt during the DT extraction came rushing back. The two of them only had one thought, agreed upon in unison: _run._

They spun on their heels, vaulting over the last in the line of tables. The sticky goo on the table seemed to try and hold their hand there, reaching out and trailing after them as they peeled themselves away, leaving a sticky handprint in their wake.

“I warned you! I warned you she couldn’t be trusted!” Chara cried, eyes wide, the moving shadows of the forming creatures calling back memories of the void.

A hand bit into their ankle, wrapping malleable fingertips around them and then solidifying into cracked teeth that bit down against their skin.

They screamed, falling and being dragged back into the room.

The three blobs had formed into a familiar, twisted shape; a dozen gaping skulls staring back at them. The pricks of white in their many eyes seemed both bored and hungry. The whole room crackled with their voices made up of screaming static and blinking lights.

As they were dragged back they knocked over a small table stacked with tools. Chara snatched up a pair of wire cutters and stabbed at the tendrils only to have her attempt pass right through the creature.

A second toothy hand reached out and touched her, goo dripping from its fingers like spittle. It rested its weight upon her shoulder and the whole world lurched as they were flung into a memory.

***

_She did not understand what awoke her the first time it happened. She only knew that she sensed something strong and warm._

_She did not know where she was or how long she had been there before she woke up but she was scared. She had no body. She felt nothing. She sensed only darkness outside of the imagination of her own mind._

_She drifted towards the source of the warmth. It was all she had to go on._

_It was another child. A little girl in a ballerina costume. Her black frizzy hair all done up in a neat bun, her little brother pressed close to her as she observed the new world they had been thrown into._

_…Chara remembered having a brother._

_She asked the girl for help._

_They traveled together for a while._

_***_

They struggled against their restraints, both Rain and Chara bursting free of the memory and twisting around to fight back against the hand. They managed to pry themselves free but still the residue clung to them, pulling them backwards into their own mind.

***

_Toriel took them in. Why was Toriel in the Ruins? Why was she not in the castle with Dad? Why were there so many monsters that wanted to catch her?_

_She rested for a while; content to be a quiet voice watching from the back of the Ballerina’s mind while she recovered. She told the two siblings stories about the castle. She tried to get one of them to tell Toriel that she was still here. That she was still alive._

_But the girl refused._

_***_

The goo bubbled upon their skin, each bubble looking like a new smiling face staring up at them with amusement.

They pulled at it. They tried to rip it free of their skin.

They tried to throw the memory away.

…But it came back.

***

_Toriel had locked herself in her room. She was crying. The ballerina was angry._

_The boy had loved Chara’s stories of the castle. He had wanted to go there himself but Toriel would not let them. Then a voice from the other side of the door had offered to take him._

_The boy was gone._

_The Ballerina went after him. She refused to be afraid. She was only angry that her brother had been taken._

_Chara watched in horror as monsters came after them and the girl fought back. Monsters she had grown up with fell under nothing more than a graceful kick, a brandished stick and her burning Determination._

_The girl said she deserved to live. Her family was worth fighting for. Worth **killing** for. Her pink shoes left white footprints in their wake, slipping by Snowdin as the town slept._

_The first kill hurt the most. But after that it got easier for the both of them. After that Chara found that it was a little easier to talk sometimes. A little easier to persuade the girl to do as she wanted._

_They soon met the captain of the Royal Guard. An imposing creature of steel and scale. It was here that Chara learned about reloading. It was here that the Ballerina’s burning desire to save her brother and her unwavering belief that she had a right to live, taught Chara how to cheat death. It was here that the Ballerina with her improvised weapons and anger, bested the Captain of the Royal Guard and brought him to his knees._

_Yet Chara stopped her. She begged for mercy. She had known this monster once- or at least she thought she had. He was a friend._

_Chara assured her that her brother’s kidnapping must be some sort of misunderstanding. She promised the ballerina that if she would just take her to the castle, she would talk to Asgore herself. He was her father after all. He would understand. And then he could help Chara understand. He would help her remember what had happened and who she was... who she had been._

_They spared the Captain. They shed their dusty tutu and dangerous slippers. Then they set out for the castle._

***

They tried to crawl out of the room but the toothy hands would not let them go free. They drifted along behind her like macabre balloons. The smell of static and batteries choked the air and whispers made the room go uncomfortably cold.

They tried to escape the memories.

…But they came back.

***

_They were too late. He had done it. He had really done it. He had killed the little boy._

_Chara begged the ballerina to let her speak. To let her try and talk to him. Perhaps they could still fix this somehow. Perhaps this was all just a bad dream they could wake up from._

_But her host was done listening to her. Because of her stories, because of her lies, she had lost her brother._

_That anger, that hatred… **that betrayal** …it awakened something in Chara’s broken soul. It made her remember._

_The ballerina fought with her little scavenged weapons and burning Determination. All the while Chara watched from the back of her mind in bitter anger as her father stuck them down in silence._

_Their Determination wasn’t enough._

_Chara watched the world go dark once more, dying in the same bed of flowers as before; lying at the feet of her father without ever having spoken a word._

_She remembered now._

_She laughed as he stooped down to pull the girl’s soul free from her grasp. That’s all he wanted. That was all they had ever wanted._

_She had never mattered to him after all._

_***_

Rain cried.

Chara screamed.

They curled up into the fetal position and begged for it to stop. The static continued to chant.

Something clattered against the floor.

***

_She had pulled herself back somehow. When next she awoke she remembered a little more and yet…she felt a little less..._

_She met a boy this time. A blond little thing with freckles and a cowboy hat._

_Toriel took him in and called him her own without a second thought. Chara watched her mother care for this stranger just as she had once cared for her._

_She heard stories about all the other children she had kept up till now._ _Scrapbooks and old toys told the story of how her mother had quickly adopted and then replaced each child that had fallen into the Underground. Each one had been cast aside once they expired. Each one was spoken of like a trophy, each picture of them stashed away like a prize._

_She grew bitter.  
_

_She had never really mattered to her after all. She was just something to collect._

_***_

It was a phone. It slid across the floor, guided by vines. The voices began to filter through its speaker and become clear.

“Come join the fun.”

_“Lorem ipsum docet”_

“Hold still.”

***

_Toriel kept the door locked now but the cowboy still heard the stories about the other children. He listened to Toriel curse the king who had four souls hidden away in his castle._

_He listened to Chara’s story too._

_He found these deaths to be unfair. The king needed to be brought to justice._

_Chara smiled at this and whispered in his ear. In her anger she twisted him. She twisted herself. She wanted so badly to be more than just a voice and she remembered just how to do it._

_“Bring them to justice.” She whispered._

_And so one night while Mother was sleeping, the little boy stole her key to the obsidian door and did just that. He brought them all to justice. With his gun that boasted a single unfired bullet, he killed a dozen sentries in his noble adventure._

_He did it in the name of justice. In the name of retribution. He was the new law! He was a sheriff . An adventurer! And this was his game._

_With each kill Chara’s strength quietly grew. She felt less and less. She felt better because of it. She cared for that single bullet. She nursed it. It was precious to her. She knew what those felt like and she knew just who she wanted to share that feeling with._

_…Then they met the captain._

_***_

“Go away.” A trill voice ordered, echoing out from one of the grates. “She’s had enough of you and so have I. So scram!”

“Just a moment.” The skulls chanted.

A web of impatient vines snapped out at them.

***

_Chara did not beg for her partner to spare the captain this time. She did not care about this monster anymore. All she knew was he was strong and that she would need that strength. So when_ _captain was bested once again after many a painful reset, she set to whispering in the boy’s ear._

 

 

_“Why not finish the job? He has sent at least three others to their deaths before. Why not stop him from ever being able to do it again? Why not bring him to justice?”_

_T_ _he captain knelt before them, weak and disarmed. He was at their mercy and he knew it._

_The boy did as she asked. He pulled the trigger. He killed him in cold blood._

_It’s funny how you could instantly kill a monster with a single pistol whip and yet somehow it took them so much longer to bleed out when you shot them. It probably had to do with how personal the ill intent behind a physical blow was compared to an impersonal bullet._

_Chara felt a wave of regret as she watched the Captain die. That was not who she had been saving that bullet for. She had wanted the king to have it.  
_

_The little sheriff however, felt more than just passing regret. When the crack of the real gun went off and a very real bullet killed a very real creature, it shattered the illusion of his adventure._

_He was no better than them now, wasn’t he?_

_He stopped after that. He threw away his empty gun and refused to gain any more LOVE._

_Chara tried to stop him. She tried to fight him for control. She tried to take his soul for her own when she realized he would no longer be her puppet but she was not strong enough yet._

_The little cowboy sought justice for his crimes and gave himself up._

_Chara tried to reload but his soul was not hers. His body was not hers._

_As they died at the feet of the creature she had once called Farther, she tried to reach out and pull them away from this ending. She could feel that it was possible but the choice was not hers. The boy had given up. He was not strong enough to bring them back._

_She fell into darkness again. This time she laughed as she realized what she was. What she would have to do. What she had become._

_Next time she would wait for a stronger soul. Someone with enough Determination to always cheat death. She would steal their soul right from the beginning._

_Next time she would strike her deal early._

_Just like a demon._

***

The vines cut through the creatures like they were smoke. They began to drift away as if a mild breeze had snared them; their images fading like memories. The expression on their many merged faces seemed distracted, perhaps even bored. They didn’t seem to care anymore.

Their voices were whispers of departing static.

“Oh well…”

“That’s a shame.”

“Be seeing you.”

Chara panted, eyes rolling around in white-eyed fear. Her head was lying in a puddle of her own tears. Her heart raced so fast it hurt.

They had stopped fearing physical pain long ago. They had stopped worrying about death and long lasting consequences. They were above that now. But there were still three things Chara feared. Three things that even Rain shied away from:

The cracked void and its skull-like face.

 Being manipulated or taken advantage of in a way that quietly took away their control over a given situation,

 And last off all, for Chara, encountering anything that made her feel the echoes of emotions she had chosen to shed because she wanted so desperately to never be hurt by them again.

Memoryhead was a nightmare.

Memoryhead was full of pain.

Flowey slid out from his spot in the grate, twirling and juggling a phone from one vine to the other as he swayed towards them with an amused giggle. “Golly, that was scary, wasn’t it? Boy, you sure look like you’ve had it rough!”

Chara’s fingers turned to claws as she glared up at him through her hair. “Asriel.” She growled.

“Howdy!” He deployed several vines to help prop her up into a more dignified position. “Here let me help you with that. You look ridiculous. Wipe that drool from your face, you’re not a vegitoid.”

She smacked his vines away as soon as she sat up. “Why are you here?”

He tried to act hurt but he was too giddy, too eager to show her what a good job he had done. “Why saving you, you big silly! I’m here to get you out of this dump, just like I promised!” His nicked petals perked up and quivered with the excitement and pride of that statement. His face bore child-like fangs and for a brief moment his eyes took on the familiar light of a monster that was long dead.

He looked back into the room they had come from, the screen still flickering in the darkness. “Pretty sick huh? You have no idea how many of those things that stupid lizard made. What a complete failure, both as a scientist and a person! I’ll never understand how she got this job in the first place. What a loser.”

Chara rubbed her head and tried to fight back the memories. Rain was composing herself as well, gauging the situation from behind their eyes. So long as their negative emotions overpowered them like this, Chara had the advantage over her.

“I knew she was a fraud and a liar. I warned you.” Chara pounded an angry fist against their chest in an attempt to harass Rain. “I warned you!”

Flowey watched the spectacle with something not quite touching amusement. “Yeah, she’s pretty messed up, right? At least we _own_ our choices.” He snickered. “But golly, if she doesn’t hide all of hers down here! Me, the amalgamates, you- anything shameful gets chucked in the basement! That Smiley Trash Bag is in on the whole thing too. It sure is funny what ‘good’ monsters are willing to put you guys through just to save a little face, isn’t it? I mean, they have been letting those skull things feed on your memories every other night ever since it found you during the DT extraction- and they never even bothered to tell you!”

Rain jolted in shock. _“No. No. That’s not true. It can’t be true. They wouldn’t do that.”_

“Quit lying to yourself.” Chara snapped, rubbing at her right eye. She had a splitting headache; just like the ones they always woke up with after their dreams were overrun with memories when Sans wasn’t around to look after them. “You know it’s true.”

Flowey was carrying on with his script, ignoring the conversation he could only hear half of. “And she just keeps doing it! She keeps covering everything up! Even the things she shouldn’t have to! Like Mettaton- that stupid sardine can she’s working on upstairs.” He pressed his mouth into an O and acted like he was realizing something for the first time. “Say, you know about what they are planning up there, right?”

“What do you mean?””

He rolled his eyes. “Oh boy, are you in for a surprise. She’s outfitting him right now so he can withstand your attacks! She has some twisted plan to turn your life into a reality game show so she can try and make herself look good. But I don’t know if Mettaton is buying it.

“Any minute now she’s going to try and call you up to the top floor to give you some ‘news’ and then he’s going to jump out and attack you.” He winked and stuck out his tongue. “So I’d get out of here if I were you.” He flung the phone at her, forcing her to catch it if she didn't want to be smacked in the face. “Here. Better hold on to this. She was going to give it to you anyway. Little hint- that button on the side there activates a jetpack. She was only going to give you half a tank of fuel, buuut I filled it up for you. Still, the fuel won’t last forever, so use it wisely!” 

Chara pulled herself up onto shaky knees. Rain was oddly lacking in arguments against this. She was still trying to swallow all the things they had experienced.

A little ways down the hall the elevator dinged. “Oh wow, look at that! The elevator is fixed!” Flowey chirped in feigned surprise. By now it was no surprise that he had been manipulating the power to his will.

“Why are you helping us, you little rat?”

“Because it’s fun and the rest of the world is boring.”

Chara chuckled, her shoulders heaving with the motion. “That’s nice. But I’m not stupid. I know you were trying to milk me for Determination. And now that you can’t anymore, this means you have found another use for me.”

Flowey began to slide away little by little, eyes shifting back and forth. “Haha. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“You know I **hate** liars, Asriel. **I hate be used.** ” She lifted her head high, looking down her nose at him with her familiar childhood smirk in place. “The only reason you have survived this long is because Rain won’t let me kill you. But you know what?”

“uhhh,w-what?”

“She’s is getting pretty sick of **liars** too.” She lunged for him, fingers clawing at his vines, wire cutters in hand. She tried to pull him towards her but he snaked away, back up into the vent with a hiss and a snarl. She managed to cut a few vines away but the damage was superficial.

Rain tried to pull her back but it was hard. She was not in a good place right now.

“That wasn’t very nice, Chara!” Flowey spat, his flower head glaring down at them with black eyes from the ceiling.

They heard something creak down the other hallway. Something was stirring within the Sleeping Room.

Everyone looked down the hall. A white bird’s head with massive black eyes peeked around the corner. For a moment it looked like it was batting its eyelashes at them, then they realized those eyelashes were teeth.

“Don’t pick on me.” It said, its voice quiet and sweet.

“Oh, would you look at that. Another friend. Well, the door’s over there if you want to get out. I’ll leave you to it!” Flowey winked one more time then vanished.

Rain and Chara began to inch along the wall towards the elevator. Rain’s voice came in over Chara’s at last and tried to keep the new creature calm. “Hey there. Um, sorry to bother you. We were just leaving.”

That thing was made up of other monsters, right? Monsters were usually friendly. They were reasonable.

The bird’s head curled around the corner and began to slither across the floor on a long, thin neck.; the rest of its body trailing above and behind it like smoke and balloons. Its movements sounded like dry leaves. “ _Don’t_ pick on me.” It repeated.

“Ok. Ok, we won’t pick on you.” They gripped the pliers tighter for all the good they would do. They were almost to the elevator.

The bird did not like this. “ **Don’t pick on me**!” It screamed, opening a mouth made of several rows of teeth. Spittle flung from its eyes like goopy tears. Its neck coiled and it struck at them like a viper.

Rain smashed the elevator button. They heard an audible thunk that dented the door as it closed.

The elevator whirred to life. They pressed their back against it, panting as it rocketed up out of the darkness. Higher, higher and higher until it could not possibly still be taking them to a floor within the lab anymore.

When it finally whined to a halt and the doors shuddered open, a wave of heat hit them and orange light painted their frightened face.

They did not dare question how the elevator had taken them so far away from the lab but they were in one of the mid-levels of Hotland now. 

They hesitated for a moment, Rain filling their feet with lead.

“What do you want to do?” Chara demanded, annoyed by her hesitance.

Rain closed her eyes.

They ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and thus ends the backstory arc for Chara. Believe it or not I originally only intended for Chara to have flashbacks during the Memoryhead encounters. I added all the other dreams while flying by the seat of my pants during the eleventh hour because I felt like the Memoryhead encounters would have left a big information gap if left on their own. I'm glad I did it. it opened the way for some new dimensions to Chara's personality and some nice parallels between characters.  
> ~*~*~*  
> sadly this is the last edited chapter I have so its going to be a while before I post a new one. T_T


	48. That’s Showbiz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That’s Showbiz  
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
> Mettaton attempts to save his show with improv. its not working.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhh! Ok im back! So sorry about the long silence. my computer was totally trashed and I couldn't open my documents anymore. I had to get a completely new computer and import everything. :( luckily everything survived the trip and I should be back on schedule now. to all those who have stuck around during all this- thank you.

When Alphys had first proposed the idea that would achieve the impossible and make him more famous then he already was, Mettaton was ecstatic. But now that some time had passed and their star guest had decided to start throwing a lot of…  _improv_  at them, his enthusiasm was wilting into unease.

 He had been cracking down on Alphys for avoiding their agreed upon meetings so she could finish his new body when he had first encountered the human. And  _encountered_  was the right word for it. The little creature had  been left to her own devices and had fallen asleep with her face on the breakroom table! She must have been unimaginably star-struck when he woke her up because for a moment she looked so startled he thought she may try and strike him.

But Alphys was there in a flash and had hurried her out of the room amidst his cries of wonder and the human’s own mix of apologies and curses.  As the human had turned to look over her shoulder at him on her way out, he caught a strange spark of something dark glinting in her eye that left the room feeling a little colder than it had been but a moment ago. It stirred in him a strangely familiar warning that he could not place. But he soon shook off the feeling of dread and flooded Alphys with questions and accusations.

They had both been in the human fan club together once upon a time. They were friends and he could not fathom why she could keep such a delicious secret from him. The whole Underground had been looking for this human and wouldn't you know it, of all the monsters in the Underground who could have done it, it was Alphys who had taken it upon herself to hide her! Alphys! Hiding humans from _him_! Who would have ever seen such a twist coming?

He wanted to meet her! He wanted to know why she climbed the mountain. He wanted to interview her and find out just how much his shows had impacted her during her stay in the Underground. He wanted to know once and for all how many fingers humans really had!

Yet Alphys did not share in his enthusiasm despite her feeble attempts to pretend she did. She was good at beating around the bush though, so trying to get her to tell him why she was acting so strange was next to impossible. All he managed t o glean from her was that she had somehow gotten it in her head that she was protecting the Underground by hiding the human down here but the human was starting to outstay her welcome. Other than that she remained evasive.

Alphys sent him on his way with tight-lipped words that spoke volumes of her nervousness and a panicked plea that he tell no one of her secret until she was ready.  So when she called him up a few days later with a crazy plan to integrate the human into their society and get her out of the lab, Mettaton found himself agreeing to take the gig.

He didn’t like the idea of waving the human under Asgore’s nose on live television but there was no way he could pass up the opportunity to hose a real, live human on his show. The ratings would be record-breaking! History making! They would need to make a whole new set of golden statues to commemorate the event!

He tried not to think of that strange little pit of unease that had set up shop in his core during the show's preparations. He ignored the strange sense of déjà vu that tickled the back of his mind and tried not to think too much about how worried Alphys seemed to be when she insisted on giving him armor upgrades “just as a precaution.”

Alphys was always worried about _something_ so it was no big  deal- but he had to admit that part of the reason he wanted to do this was so he could get the human away from her and he couldn’t quite place the reason why.

As far as he was concerned if the human really did turn out to be a little brat he could take her soul for himself and be done with it. Maybe his show would end in a grand finale that saw him stepping through the barrier to become the star of the Overworld and the ambassador the Underground needed. He didn’t really understand why no one had snatched up her soul yet anyway. Asgore had six of the things after all so Determination couldn’t make humans  _that_  hard to kill, right? Maybe everyone else had just been too slow!

 

Mettaton’s internal monologue was interrupted when his phone rang. It was Alphys.

“Ah, there you are darling. Is she on her way? We just finished setting everything up.” He chimed while inspecting his nonexistent nails.

His new show had not gotten off to a great start. The series was supposed to launch with a quiz show but when Alphys had gone to go get the human, the power had gone out and the elevator had seized up. The human had somehow run off into Hotland during the chaos so a bit of improv had been needed to smooth things over.

“Um, y-yeah. Yeah she’s coming. S-she’s on the live feed now. Maybe five more minutes? Oh god, she’s moving really fast i-isn’t she? I’m s-s-so sorry.” Under her breath she added, “I forgot that she knew the layout of Hotland so well.”

“What in the world are you walking about?" Mettaton shook himself from his curiosity, "Ah, never mind. No time to chitchat right now. Alphys darling, don’t worry about it.” He said with a twirl of the wrist, wheeling onto the set. “I’ve got this covered. You have at least gotten her to pick up the phone, right? Did you explain the gig?”

Alphys’s voice dripped with guilt and worry. “N-no. She’s not picking up. I have sent her like, a hundred texts. A-and called her like, twice! Maybe it’s br-broken?”

He rubbed at his screen. Great. More complications. More indications that this human was not keen to play along. “Calm down darling. We can improvise as we go. The secret to any good show is giving the script room to breathe. We will just have to set up a call-in station for you on set so you can advise her from there. It will all turn out fine. I have to go now. Love you, beautiful!” He ended the call and  took a deep whirring breath. "Alright! Places everyone! The human will be here any minute now! Let’s all look our best, shall we?” 

Mettaton took his place up on the stage. The camera crew tucked themselves away behind a false wall and the lights went out. It felt like hours had passed before he heard the human’s cautious footsteps against the floor but in truth she had arrived early. He could hear her whispering to herself as she crept deeper onto the set. When it sounded like she was half way into the room the lights snapped on.

That was his queue. He straightened himself up and called out in his grandiose voice. “Ohhh Yes! Welcome beauties and gentle beauties to the premiere of our new show!” He made a grand gesture to what would be the bottom of the viewer’s screen. In bright pink magic the words “cooking with a killer robot” Faded into existence in a hail of glitter and delicate sound effects.

The human froze, her eyes wide and uncertain. “Hello?” She said slowly.

Mettaton gave her a charming wave that he hoped would keep her calm while he continued his introduction. “Pre-heat your ovens because we have a very special recipe for you today! That’s right! Today we will be making…a cake!”

“Sorry, uh, this place usually isn’t in use when I pass through here. My mistake... Sorry.” She began to back away but gasped when the electric field snapped into place behind her with a crackle. They had been forced to take certain safety precautions in case she got reckless.

She jumped back, eyes going all the wider in jaded disbelief. She had only ever seen one other shield like that and it had been in the lab. Something that had started out as a quiet doubt in the back of her mind solidified into something much more bitter as she came to understand this.

Mettaton did not seem to notice when she gripped something in her hand a little harder that before and her expression darkened, eyes flashing wild for but a heartbeat.

“My lovely assistant here will grab the ingredients for me. Everyone give them a big hand!” He gestured to her while a hail of confetti spiraled downward from the ceiling. Its bright colors were a stark contrast to the inner moods of both the host and his guest.

She responded to this announcement by taking another step back until the field made her hair stand up amidst a storm of static. She shook her head in warning.

He made a subtle encouraging gesture that pleaded:  _Play along, darling._ Mettaton leaned seductively against the counter, an impressive move for a rectangle. “We will need flower, milk and eggs. Go for it sweetheart.” He said with a digital wink.

She hesitated a moment, eye twitching. Each mention of "darling" or "sweetheart" causing her to go a little more ridged. Then she inched along the walls and gathered the ingredients and set them down as far away from him as physically possible without dropping them on the floor.

He gave her an approving smile anyway.

Ok. This was ok. The audience loved the shy ones. They ate that stuff up. And the bit where she was scooting along with her back against the wall? Comedy!

“Great job sweetheart.” One of his arms overextended and pulled the batch of ingredients over to him. He picked them up one by one and posed with each one held up next to his face so everyone could see the MTT brand logo on them. “Let’s see, we got eggs, flour, sugar- oh my! Wait a magnificent moment!” His voice darkened a little, both mischievous and comically seductive. “How could I forget?” His screen flashed into a smiley face with red eyes. The human shifted nervously in the background.

“We are missing the most important ingredient.” He pulled a chainsaw out from under the sink and distorted his voice into something menacing. “A human soul!”

This was it. This was the plot of the show. He was supposed to be a robot gone rouge. Everyone saw him as an idol and humans as something dangerous to be feared. So in his show he was going to flip that on its head. The human would be the hero, kind and shy and fun, and he would be the villain who was taught a lesson in friendship and heroics by the unified teamwork of a human and her helpful monster friend: the Royal Scientist. 

The audience would learn a lesson in friendship, talk about their feelings on the Undernet, get the king to lay off for a while, ect ect Happy Endings(tm) all around roll the credits. The fact that the human may not be in on it yet was simply  a minor complication.

He twitched towards her, cackling maniacally while the rev of the chainsaw made his whole body shake.  Any minute now Alphys would call in to stop him and together she and the human would “beat” him at his own game.

For a brief second he saw that darkness flash across her eyes again and he felt the strange sense of dread again. Then she whipped out her phone and killed the mood. “Oh _hell_  no! Nope. Fuck this shit I’m out.” The set took a nosedive into confusion with all the grace of someone falling down an "up" escalator as she flipped open the phone and mashed one of its buttons. The phone expanded, a set of wings extending out from the sides and a pair of straps reaching out to hug her form.

Mettaton balked. “What?” 

In a shower of flame and sparks she kicked off, Mettaton diving out of the way as she flew forward, knocking over the ingredients in a cloud of flower. She shot past the _Human Soul Substitute_ they had planned for the cake, kicked off over the ledge that should have cut her off from her exit, and kept going  up. Up and up and up, over the energy field, out of view of the cameras and- unbeknownst to Mettaton- she took a page out of his own book of old escape tricks and landed on a low hanging outcrop that lead to the next level of Hotland overhead.

Mettaton stared up at the ceiling for a long while before going to commercial while the crew groaned and checked to see if they had censored her language in time.

He called Alphys. It seemed there may have been a slight design flaw in their already poorly designed plan.

***

In the last twenty four hours reality seemed to have completely lost its shit. She didn’t know what the hell was going on anymore or who to trust. Her friends had betrayed her. Used her.  _Lied_ to her. In the past twenty four hours she had been attacked by the babbling tumors of a science project gone wrong, joined Chara in reliving the disorienting, painful memories of losing the parts of her that made her human and now Alphys had set a crazy, overly flamboyant robot after her. Not to mention Sans had apparently been aware of all of the underhanded things taking place around her and had conveniently stepped out just before it had all gone to hell.

Oh! And for some reason this was apparently all being broadcast on live TV! Brilliant!

As for her other friends, Undyne was off somewhere contemplating coming clean to the king- not that it mattered now that her face was plastered all over TV- and Toriel, perhaps the only person who would be willing to help her out of this mess, had departed for destinations unknown because Chara had spat in her face.

She couldn’t even go back to before this had all happened and try to fix it because when she had escaped the deepest, darkest parts of the lab all she had wanted to do was get away from it all. Some would even say that she had been downright  _determined_  to escape that lab.

Oops.

No going back now.

Hotland became a deranged nightmare. Cameras trailed after her at every turn; carried on the backs of Alphys’s robotic contraptions or carried in the claws of flying cameramen. There were also several puzzles and security features that they had never encountered in all of their many trips through Hotland that had suddenly decided that now was the perfect time to come online and get in her way.

So now she was slogging through puzzles and dodging laser traps amidst a panic attack that had allowed Chara to jump into the driver’s seat undisputed for the first time in months. Every time she thought they had shaken Mettaton he showed up again with a horrible, overly bright, incredibly loud B villain style plan to kill them.

In truth the majority of the stuff he threw at them seemed too ridiculous to be real. And although they feared the things down in the lab, risking life and limb in a physical confrontation was nothing new or scary to them. What was scary was how these damn encounters just kept coming. What was scary was how these frightfully bad schemes almost seemed to be designed to goad Chara, who had never been fond of the robot in the first place.

All Rain wanted was to find a quiet place to rest and organize her thoughts. She just wanted to calm down and sleep off the shock of what she had discovered down in the lab. But there would be no such reprieve. Not when there were so many people watching her, so many people following her. So many voices pointing her out and crowding in around her. She even encountered with a few overzealous Mettaton fans who apparently recognized her from the big screen and decided to take a swing at her so they could be a TV star too.

Chara was an eruption of hate and bitter frustration during all of this. With every step, with every turn, with every encounter she hissed in Rains ear.

_“I told you so.”_

_“I knew they were lying.”_

_“They were using you.”_

_“After all you have done, after all you have sacrificed to keep them safe, they have **betrayed**  you.”_

_“Look at this. You are playing their game. You are nothing but a toy to them.”_

_“Some **friends**.”_

It was too much. Rain needed to be calm in order to contain Chara on a good day. She needed something worth protecting. But now she hardly knew who her friends were anymore. She was afraid and Chara fed on that fear, turning it to rage that in turn frightened Rain all the more in a vicious cycle of negative emotions that built up until she couldn’t hold them in anymore.

People started to get hurt.

Rain’s hands shook as she ducked into a small hole in the wall. She pressed her back against its warmth and held her breath as a monster carrying a camera passed her by.

She tried to throw away her recently obtained wire cutters but it almost seemed to stick to her hands now. Her fingers wrapped around them until her hand cramped.

Chara continued to whisper, still caught within the cusp of her own relived grief.  _“They left you, they toyed with you, they **lied**  to you. They  **used** you. Doesn’t that make you angry? Doesn’t that make you want to  **hurt them back**?”_

“No.” She hissed through her teeth. But still she could not let go. She looked down at her hands, unable to look away from the thin layer of dust that clung to her skin and hid under her nails.

She hadn’t hit the monsters that hard.

They would be fine.

They would be ok.

Someone would help them before they bled out. There were monsters everywhere.  _Everywhere_! So what if she has slipped up and attacked someone? Someone would get there in time and save them.

“No.” She whispered again, holding her head in her hands and rocking in place with her eyes squeezed shut. Chara was not the only one who wouldn’t let go. A part of Rain clung to that weapon too. A part of her she did not like. A part of her that was afraid.

“Why do they keep following me?” She groaned to no one in particular. “I’m dangerous! I have hurt people! I’m sure the cameras caught it. So why are they all still out there? Why do they think this is a game? Why do they think I’m ok to toy with?” She screamed.

The flying monster came back, drawn in by the screams and angling the camera down at her.

Chara picked up a rock and stole control of her voice. Rain let her. “Piss off! Can’t you see we are trying to have a private conversation?” She snarled.

The rock bounced off the camera, cracking the lens and sending the monster darting off to a safer distance.

Rain buried her head against her arms and tried not to think about how dry her throat was. Ever since she lost her last reset in the escape from the lab she had been trying to use her new save points to find a better hiding place but so far they had had no luck in doing anything else but prolonging this hellish day.

Her phone vibrated for what was probably well over the hundredth time since all this madness had started. Alphys had been trying to reach her for some time now, calling, texting, sending her friend requests through the Undernet. At first the scientist had tried to play the whole thing off as having made an error while working on Mettaton. As first she claimed he was after her on his own accord after she had made a mistake in his programming and she wanted to help Rain get somewhere safe. She tried to text her directions or hints to the puzzles but Rain didn’t bother to respond.  She had been through the Underground enough times to have figured out that Mettaton was a ghost, not a robot. She had broken into his old house and read all his diaries a long time ago. She knew Alphys couldn’t have “accidentally rewired” him.

When she didn’t respond to her directions, Alphys’s texts became more frequent and worried. By now she had devolved into feeble pleas for her to please,  _please_  pick up the phone and talk to her. She could explain if Rain would just come back to the lab.

Rain contemplated throwing the phone away. It didn’t seem to be worth much now. She had used up the last of the fuel when Mettaton had pulled some sick bomb skit on her. Because hey, you know what scared, all-powerful possessed time lords love dealing with when they are desperate to find a quiet room to calm down in? Bomb threats! Lots and lots of bomb threats!

The phone rang. Unusual for Alphys, who almost exclusively sent texts.

Rain rolled her eyes, closing in on the resolve to throw the phone away. But when she glimpsed the call number it was not one she recognized.

She frowned, curious. This wasn’t the Royal Scientist.

Against her better judgment she answered, lining up a novel’s worth of choice words to give to whichever one of Alphys’s accomplices this might be. “Why are you calling me?” She snapped, a little bit of Chara bleeding through.

“Oh, wowie! I finally got the right number!” If Papyrus had taken note of her bitter mood, he chose to ignore it.

“Papyrus?”

“Hello Rain! I am just calling to let you know how proud I am!”

She got up and looked around, expecting more cameras. Was Papyrus in on this too? She hoped not. She didn’t think she could handle it if he had been playing her too. Not him. Not Sweet, goofy Papyrus. “Proud? Why? How did you get this number?”

“Oh, that was easy! All I had to do was get a list of every phone number in the Underground, and call them sequentially until I found you.”

She rubbed at her temple but couldn’t help but let slip a stressed little laugh. It was good to hear his voice again. “Papyrus, you didn’t even know I had a phone.”

“Oh. Hm. You are right. Do you have a phone?”

She sighed, a little bit of tension easing out of her shoulders. She leaned against the warm stone behind her. “Yes, Papyrus. I have a phone.” She said softly.

“Great! Anyway as I was saying, I just wanted you to know how proud I am of you! I have been watching your adventures with Mettaton all day! It has been highly entertaining. You have really been showing that evil robot a thing or two about trying to mess with the friends of the Great Papyrus!” He laughed a little to himself then, his soft nyehs coming in over a faint crackle of static.

“I can’t believe I’m friends with a TV star! I’m sure your final confrontation will be both dramatic, action-packed and full of bloodshed; just like the trailers said!” He hesitated a moment, seeming to reconsider. “Only, could you two… maybe hold off on the bloodshedy part? I still worry for your health sometimes. And, well, even if Mettaton is malfunctioning right now, he’s actually a pretty cool guy the rest of the time. He’s my favorite tv idol and I would be really sad if he got hurt and had to go take a vacation for a long time or something.”

She smiled a little, even though she didn’t feel like it. He wasn’t in on it. Of course he wasn’t. “I’ll do my best, Papyrus.”

“Great! Oh and um, if it’s not too much to ask, when you are done hanging out with Mettaton and stopping him from being evil, could you maybe…get me an autograph?”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Oh. Ok. Well, I hope you can thwart him soon so he can go back to normal in time for his late night game show. I like the puzzles in that one.”

“Yeah. Ok. In time for dinner then. I will keep that in mind.” She peered out of her hiding spot. A mass of onlookers and cameras were collecting off in the distance. She would have to get going soon.

“Hey, Papyrus?”

“Yes?”

“Have you been watching any other shows lately? Like the news? Has anyone said anything about Asgore looking for me yet? I would have thought he would be out here by now but, well, time is a bit of a wobbly subject for me.” Was Flowey keeping the king in the dark again?

“Hmmm.” By the sound of disembodied voices jumping from subject to subject on his side of the phone she assumed he was flipping through the channels. “No. I haven’t seen anything about him yet. Do you think he will come help you save Mettaton too? It would be really cool if he did!”

“I doubt it. If he’s not on the move by now I doubt he will show up later.” She felt the bitter taste of frustration rising up in her throat now. Honestly at this point she had kind of been hoping the elusive king would come down and finish this for her. If he absorbed all the souls himself then he would be in control of the timeline. She almost didn’t care about what happened to her after that. So long as Chara couldn’t go back and ruin everything again.

_“Well then maybe it’s time we go talk to him ourselves.”_

Rain’s jaw set in resignation. Her grip tightened on the wire cutters. Maybe it was. Maybe she should stop running from this and get it over with. “Hey, Papyrus. One more question. You didn’t… you didn’t see anything bad on TV, did you? No one has gotten hurt, right?”

He hummed in thought. “No. Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

She looked down at the dust on her hands. Good. They had managed to edit it out. Papyrus hadn’t have to see that side of her again. “Just making sure.” She slipped out of her hiding place, checking that the way was clear before slinking off down the path.

He must have caught the guilt in her voice because he began to sound concerned. “Are you ok? Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’ll live.” She assured; her voice somewhat dead. “But if it’s ok with you, could you stay on the phone for a little while longer? It’s nice to hear a friendly voice after the day I’ve had.”

He didn’t sound entirely convinced but he didn’t argue. “Sure. Right. Of course. I will even try and help you with any puzzles you come across.”

“Thank you, Papyrus. I’m glad you are still on my side.” She set out on the road to the capital. It’s where they had been corralling her towards anyway.

If she couldn’t goad the king into taking those damn souls for once by running around on live TV then maybe she should cut her losses and take his. Maybe between his soul and hers they would be able to keep Chara in line. Maybe a king was simply the cost the Underground needed to pay for its safety. At this point she didn’t much care about who would win or what price she would have to pay when she faced him. She could pay it.

Besides, Flowey had said that Alphys had been out of ideas anyway. And Sans? Sans had given up before things had ever even started. Maybe it was time to cut her losses and get out. She couldn’t go back to the lab. Not after what she had seen.

Chara approached her with obvious surprise.  _“Wait? You’re actually going? You are actually going to go to him?”_

She chewed on her lip, choosing to respond in thought rather than words to keep Papyrus out of it.  _“Why not? You don’t have any LOVE so it’s anyone’s game, right? If he catches me he can keep me. I have been moving from one prison to another anyway so what’s one more?_

Chara laughed at this. Condescending down to the lowest note.  _“Alright. But what about Asriel? He will be there waiting to destroy the king’s soul like he always does.”_

She ground her teeth and kept her eyes trained on the ground directly in front of her, only allowing herself to think about the next step. It wasn’t until her phone started to encounter interference and Papyrus had to hang up that Chara’s prodding eventually forced her to answer. “He always shows up to talk to you outside the castle, doesn’t he?”

_“Yep.”_

“Then I’ll take care of it.”


	49. Ink

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mettaton's mini series reaches its epic conclusion!  
> In other news, Sans finally shovels his walkway!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally wrestled this chapter back from my sister >:k

This whole thing had been a disaster. A failure so pure in form it was almost an art. Alphys had somehow managed to anger the human to the point that she refused to talk to her. So that was about 30% of the show’s foundation thrown out the window before the first act had ever even opened. Not only that but the human had managed to avoid or cut short all of their planed encounters in one way or another, leaving their narrative in tatters.

His ratings were taking a nosedive, the human was loose in the Underground and seemed to only grow all the more volatile by the hour, and Mettaton himself had been made to look a fool in his own spotlight. Not to mention Alphys was, well, her usually fretty self.

The human had recently stopped running around like a frightened animal and was now heading straight for the capitol, leaving Mettaton with a sickening sense of de ja vu that hinted at the possibility that maybe Alphys had not given him the whole story before he had agreed to this.

Either the human was heading for the king, or she was heading for the most populated part of the Underground to do what humans did best: make a scene. And after hearing some of the reports he had gotten about her other, ah,  _scenes_ , he was not enthusiastic about the idea of her riding in to the capitol boasting the MTT logo.

At least he had gotten her away from Alphys and had learned a thing or two about humans, so two out of three goals met wasn’t so bad.

As for the part where Alphys got to play the role of hero for her little friend? Well, not everyone got their fifteen minutes of fame. It was becoming more and more apparent that this story could not have the happy ending his friend had desired. But that was ok with him; the audience loved a good tragedy and Mettaton was inclined to give them one after the volatile creature had nearly dusted one of his camera men.

Besides, he had become quite fond of the idea of catching the human’s soul for himself. He could still turn this negative into a positive. He could use her to cross the barrier himself and stave off Asgore’s war. He would emerge from this mountain he had been buried under and rise to new levels of fame among humanity. Surely there were humans up there that were far better than the one that had fallen down here, right?  

And once he had paved the way for monsterkind with his fame and stardom, he would bring to light the plight of the Underground. Why, humans would practically throw themselves at him in their eagerness to help! The barrier would be taken down and monsterkind would look to him as their new savior instead of Asgore. There would be no more talk of war then. 

So it was with little regret that the TV star who yearned to one day see the sky, set into motion the little backup plan he had arranged under the table when Alphys wasn’t looking.

He began to alert nearby Royal Guardsmen and waved fat coin purses under the noses of every bodyguard, brute and thug he could get his hands on. He talked to old friends, new friends and secret friends, then he sent them on their way.

He ignored Alphys’s calls when he began to deviate from what she was expecting of him. She did not need to know what he was doing. She may resent him for it later but at this point he was doing this for her own good. He steeled himself for what was to come and sent his small army of brutes to go collect the human for him, only to watch in mounting horror as the human beat them down one by one like they were nothing.

He tried to rearrange the Core, its many interchangeable rooms surely random enough to confuse and entrap her.

Yet still she continued on, never pausing in her choices of branching paths. 

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

Every time he thought he had caught her, she somehow wormed away.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

She was ever steady in her footsteps. Quiet save for the brief calls she made to some unknown friend before the interference from the Core cut her off.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

She seemed to know what he was doing before he did. He began to grow desperate as the last of his mercenaries were driven back.

…And then it was just him.

Him and Alphys, who was on her way over to try and smooth things out in person.

He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let this thing near his friend. Some foggy memory of a looming danger in a day now past, yet somehow ever present, told him he had to protect her. Long forgotten memories he should not even have began to bleed into recollection and leave him with the grim realization of what he was dealing with.

He was reliving a nightmare and he had to stop it.

He let his crew know that there would be some slight changes to their already chaotic show. That little terror may have botched the season but he’d be damned if she ruined the grand finale.

They prepared.

It was a strange feeling when he entered the chosen room for their final showdown. It felt like some unseen force was pulling him inside. It was like muscle memory, tugging at the back of his mind as he waited there in the dark.

Eventually she stepped into the darkened room, a shadow framed by the eerie blue light of the core as she crept onto the unseen stage. All the unblinking cameras of the Underground watched her steps.

Mettaton smirked to himself, believing he had caught her at last. “There you are, darling.”

***

It was a pleasant day outside. The air was cold and sharp, chilly enough for even a skeleton to feel it a little. It was nice. It managed to give the stale air a bit of a crisp bite to it.

The synthesized lights of the Underground shone overhead in a calm gray and the perpetual cycle of snow and fog had cleared up to the point that he could see the dagger-like ceiling of stalactites and false stars through the faint haze above him.

To most monsters this day would not seem that much different from any other but it was different to Sans. It was a new day. A fresh day. A day that had not repeated itself a thousand times.

Well, at least he was pretty sure it was a new day. He had had a few brief moments of things feeling somewhat off this afternoon but at this point he could be imagining things.

He tried to enjoy it. He knew that he wouldn’t be getting many more days like this.

Couldn’t be much longer now.

He waved to a few passing monsters on their way over to an early start at Grillby’s. He leaned against his snow shovel and watched them pass. The soft murmur of their chatter was soon overtaken by the shouts coming from inside of his home.

“Well I don’t know! Have you tried walking through it backwards? Argh! Why does Hotland have to be so weird? This room is utterly pointless! Why do they even have this room? What purpose could it possibly serve? Who designed this counterproductive contraption!”

Sans closed his eyes and chuckled as Papyrus continued to rant. He always got so wrapped up in his TV shows. He could tell him over and over again that most of that reality TV junk was scripted and that it didn’t matter how loud you yelled, the people on TV couldn’t hear you; Papyrus would still end up talking to the screen.

Ah well, at least he seemed to be enjoying whatever he was watching.

“Seriously, who? I want to know so I can send them a strongly worded letter- of encouragement! Encouragement to make better puzzles in the future. Like mine!”

Well, enjoyment may be a relative term.

Deciding that he had been on break long enough, Sans returned to his work. So far he had seen no sign of the accursed flower but his attempts to convince Papyrus to stop talking to it if he ever saw it again had gone about as well as all of his previous attempts to get him to leave Rain alone.

The only thing he had really succeeded in was getting a lot of flak for not shoveling the walkway or recalibrating any of his puzzles while he was home.

Fair enough. It had been well over two months now and he  _had_  told himself he would get around to it if time ever bothered to move forward. Of course he hadn’t actually expected time to listen to him when he had made that promise but what was he gonna do about it now? Their house was going to be buried in snow at this rate.

He continued to excavate the long forgotten walkway, listening to his brother’s continued shouts at the television while the snow crunched away under foot. He was tempted to arrange another break so he could sneak over to Grillby’s and grab some lunch after the first five minutes of shoveling but, well, he may have gotten a little careless with his tab as of late.

Wouldn’t you know it, time starts to move along in a semi-normal fashion and all of a sudden people start to ask you questions about when you plan to pay your debts. Go figure.

He had to admit, abusing that little loophole for free meals probably hadn’t been one of his smartest plans.

Another five minutes of shoveling later and he was finally starting to make a dent in things. He was going to round the first corner soon!

Something caught his eye as he made his way around the corner of the house. Was the workshop door askew?

He uttered a tired curse under his breath and plodded over to the door. Sure enough it had been pushed open nearly a foot and a considerable snowdrift dotted with tiny dog prints was waiting there to greet him on the other side.

“ah crap.” He rubbed at his skull, nudging the door open all the way and staring at the mess inside. The good news was that the workshop didn’t have any heating so the snow hadn’t melted too much. But what had managed to melt had spread out across the floor, soaking papers and turning to ice in the colder corners of the room.

It looked like that little white dog had wormed its way in as well. Several items that had been left at knee-high levels or lower were now covered in bite-marks.

“i coulda sworn i locked this.” He checked the doorknob. It was still locked. He must not have closed it all the way.

He stood on the threshold, hands in his pockets while he contemplated closing the door and leaving this problem for Future Sans.

Did it even matter at this point? Couldn’t he just leave it alone and wait for it to sort itself out?

Then a peculiar sound came in over the shouts of his brother, giving him pause.

One could have easily reasoned that it was just the wind. Or the sound of his own breathing and the drip of ice sickles. One could say it was his imagination when the strange garbled sounds reached him like a sigh, passing before most people would have ever been able to understand that they had heard something odd.

But Sans was nothing if not observant.

The noise told him to stop avoiding his work.

He tilted his head back. A dry, unpleasant sigh of exasperation rattling around in his chest as he tried to come to terms with the extra workload he was giving in to.

No. No he better not put this off. This stuff still held sentimental value at least. Besides, he didn’t know exactly when all of existence was going to end. They could suffer water damage before that happened.

“alright Dings, i’ll go check on your damn machine.” He pushed his way inside and scraped the snow off of the floor and flung it back out into the cold were it belonged. He began to salvage papers and stray parts.

On the other side of the wall he could hear Papyrus shouting out an increasingly excited vocabulary of encouragement.

A lot of the ink had bled out of the mushy papers but he imagined that was no big loss. Most of the stuff on the floor consisted of old readings and calculations that had given way to dead ends anyway.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

A lot of the ink had bled out of the mushy papers but he imagined that it was no big loss. Most of the stuff on the floor consisted of old readings and calculations that had given way to dead ends anyway.

He froze, a faint sense of de ja vu brushing up against him as he reached for one of the many scattered tools covered in little bite marks.

Was Rain reloading again?

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

He froze, a faint sense of de ja vu brushing up against him as he reached for one of the many scattered tools covered in little bite marks.

Was Rain-?

He frowned. That couldn’t be good. He couldn’t be too sure though. It was always easier to pick up on resets if he was near the source. She was pretty far away at this point so it was possible he was freaking himself out for no reason.

“maybe i should hold off on cleaning this up after all.” He grunted, slinging a pile of papers nearly half his height up onto a nearby counter. “come on rain, it would be a cruel joke to play if you decided to trap me in a perpetual cleaning loop for the next week.”

Papyrus really seemed to be getting hyped up in the other room now. At least  _he_  would have fun if they got stuck. He was screaming at the top of his lungs. Sans could practically feel the tremors running through the floor and up against his heels from all the shouting.

He salvaged a few more spare parts, wiping the moisture that clung to them off against his coat. The place looked more like a car crash in a freezer than a workshop. Damn.

He frowned when he reached the back of the room where a toppled pile of boxes awaited him. One of them had snagged on the curtain covering the machine and partially pulled it away. There were more papers all over the floor in need of saving. He thought he saw a couple of dirty paw prints on some of them.

Oh no. Had the annoying dog messed with the machine? Usually they had a sort of standing truce between the two of them that kept the dog from messing with his stuff. Sans kept the kibble coming and the pup would leave him be. But Alphys had needed his last bag for one of the amalgamates and he hadn’t bothered to by a new one in…

Oh god. Months. It had been months, hadn’t it?

“ahhh, dammit.” He bent over and began snatching up piles of paper covered in muddy dog prints and carried them over to the machine. At least it didn’t seem to have taken any damage. Just some muddy scuffmarks and chewed corners.

He flipped through the papers he had collected, setting them aside a dozen at a time once he had glanced through him. He started to make a discard pile. Some of them were too torn up and muddy to save. He tossed away several papers covered in paw prints.

A sigh.

A whisper.

A sound like static and dry leaves. It told him to look again.

He froze in place. For several long seconds Sans tried to convince himself that the voice was only his imagination this time. Then, ever so slowly, he turned back around and stared at the crumpled pile of trash, not wanting to move.

He thought that maybe, just maybe… he may have seen something.

He hadn’t. He knew he hadn’t.

But as long as he didn’t pick up the paper and look at it again he could say that he had.

“quit doing this to yourself man.” He warned, staring down at a torn fold of paper covered in paw prints.  He told himself to leave it be. Yet still his hands slid out of his pocket. Still he found himself kneeling down on the cold floor and picking up the damp sheet. “he’s gone.” He reminded himself. “they are all gone. you’re not hearing anything. you’re not seeing anything either. cause’ time? yeah, that’s gone too. or it will be soon enough. did you forget that little detail?”

He should let it go. Put the paper down. Move on.

He turned it over.

It was a long, white piece of paper that had been torn and nibbled at and splattered with mud.

And it had one long, thin black line tracing the border on the right hand side.

He stared at that single line of ink for a very,  _very_  long time. He grew deaf to Papyrus’s shouts in the other room. He forgot to feel the cold. He wasn’t even sure if he was breathing anymore.

“no. no that can’t be right.”

He checked the paper for a date. There was always a date. The only time the pages ever used any ink was to print the date. “when did i print this? five years ago? ten?” He laughed, a single breathy “heh” as he flipped it over and over again, eyes darting across the page before locking back onto that single faint line of black. He stared at it like he was afraid it would vanish into nothing if he looked away for too long.

“heh. it’s old... it’s old. it’s just old.” He told himself, acting as if he was going to throw the paper away again. But he couldn’t. His fingers refused to let go. The paper was white and crisp. It wasn’t yellowed and wrinkled like the older ones.

He looked down at it, expression blank. “No...”  

There was no date on it. The rest of the paper was missing. Torn away by the mischievous pup. “Nah. Can’t be.”

He slowly turned around, facing the machine. The curtain remained spilled halfway across its frame, like a playful mistress taunting him. Teasing him. A single trail of freshly printed paper spilled out of the machine’s scanner, over a yard long and covered in little paw prints. The end was torn.

All at once the numb stillness inside of him shattered. His eyes went wide, becoming burning white points of magic.

His smile vanished.

He dove forward, grabbing the papers like a starving man fighting for food. He fell to his knees, nasal ridge pressed up against the fresh readings, hands trembling. From one end of the paper to another, a long, hair-thin line of ink marked the border: a surviving timeline.

“It’s real.” He breathed. “Oh my god, it’s real.” He looked up at the machine, staring at it and through it, towards the direction of Hotland and its Lab. “She…she’s actually going to do it.”

He laughed. Relief, joy, disbelief. He felt lighter than air. He kept laughing, slumped against the machine. He pressed a hand against his forehead and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh my god, I’m going to have to pay my tab!” He wiped a few stray tears away from his sockets. He was laughing so hard his head hurt.

He pushed himself up off the ground and raced outside, slippers kicking up a spray of snow behind him; the torn paper trailing overhead like a victory banner as he waved it around. “Papyrus! Papyrus! You’re not going to believe this!” He all but kicked down the door.

Papyrus broke away from his TV show just long enough to greet him. “Hello Sans! How’s that walkway coming? I can help you soon if you’d like. My show is almost over.”

Sans raced across the room and all but flung himself at his brother, trusting him to catch him as he always did.

“Sans! What has gotten into you?” Papyrus demanded, grunting as he caught him and set him back down with overt care.

He was laughing again. Jumping up and down the moment he was placed back on the floor. “She did it bro! She did it! Or she’s  _going_  to do it.” He ran a hand over his skull again, trying to take it all in. Trying to appreciate and remember every moment of this. “She’s going to find a way out. Somehow.” He held up the paper for his brother to see.

Papyrus hunched himself over so he could read over his brother’s shoulder. “What? What is it? You know my eyes aren’t very good.”

The TV screen interrupted them with an overly loud theme song for one of Mettaton’s game shows. Half way through the music, the song abruptly cut itself off and was replaced by a bar screen and the words “Please stand by and look fabulous! Technical difficulties.”

“Hey, mind if we turn that junk off? We got a lot to talk about.”

Papyrus nodded, a little sigh of regret escaping him as he glanced back at the screen. “Ah, darn it. I suppose there’s no point keeping it on if it’s really done for the night. And on a cliffhanger too! It’s a shame you don’t like Mettaton’s shows Sans, Rain was his special guest tonight.”

Sans was standing on the tips of his toes, trying to hold the paper as high up as he could while still seeing what was printed on it. “See? There.” He jabbed a finger at the line. “It’s a timeline. One of them is going to get through. One of them is going to get through the darkness. She’s gonna-” His brother’s words caught up with him and his eyes darkened a little. His smile slipped back into his stagnant grin. “Wait,  _what_?”

Papyrus had taken the paper from him and was holding it up to the light now, squinting at it. “Sans, this isn’t one of your stupid space-time pranks is it? Because you know I hate those!”

“No. No it’s  _not_. I swear.” Sans waved him down. “Now hold on a minute. Back up. I think we are gliding over something important here. Did you say the human was on TV?  _With Mettaton_?”

“Mhm! They just had their final showdown. It looked like she was winning too- before they abruptly cut to a commercial break that is.” He rubbed at his chin. “They probably did that to build suspense.”

Sans’s eyes went black.

Shit.

There was no way to tell whether or not the timeline that survived was going to be a good one. All he knew was that the machine had found one that would survive and knowing that, Sans would have to accept whatever that timeline gave or took from them when it arrived. Because even if monsters lost everything they had, the rest of the world could still go on. So even if Rain broke, even if someone pushed her past the point of no return in some hair brained, crazy TV display, he would have to accept it. He would have to let Rain, and Chara, go.

“Where was she before the feed cut out?”

“The Core. Why?”

Sans’s voice crackled with static as he prepped for teleportation. “Cause wouldn’t you know it, I’m going to the Core now too.”

***

She tried to play nice. She tried to reason with him. She tried to talk things over and explain why what he was doing was so dangerous. So stupid.  _So pointless_.

He did not listen.

He gave them the grand reveal, explaining that Alphys had orchestrated the whole thing behind their back, even as the little trembling scientist pounded on the locked door behind them and begged to be let in.

Then he revealed himself to be the mastermind behind the rearrangement of the Core and the employer of whatever thugs and goons had tried to stop them in the most recent of passageways.

New lines, old news.

Chara reveled in the irony of it all. Old habits die hard- unlike Mettaton. He had arranged their final showdown in the same room they had always ended things in. His attempts to rearrange the Core to entrap and confuse them was a laughable failure. He had simply rearranged things into the same pattern they had always known.

Rain tried to worm her way out of the fight. She was tired of fighting. Tired of running. Tired of trying to get people to understand. Tired of being  **used**. It didn’t take much before her passive resolve cracked, all of her hurt and frustration finally boiling over as she brandished her scavenged weapons.

They found the switch on his backside.

They activated his new form. However, whether it was because of Alphys’s upgrades or Rain’s lack of LOVE, to Rain’s surprise he did not die in one hit like he usually did. He was actually putting up a fight.

“I thought they were my friends!” She cried, engaging him at last without holding back.

Mettaton sent arcs of electricity after her. He moved as if their battle was a dance, his new body put on display as he dodged to and fro with impossible speed and flexibility. Sparks and lightning flew through the air in a storm of heat and fire; flashing like a strobe light and burning glaring imprints onto the back of her eyelids.

Her hair burned. Her skin burned. Her clothes burned.

She reset. She reset, she reset,  ** _she reset_**.

The dark red of Chara’s soul swelled within the golden light bestowed upon it by the strange invention they had found hidden inside Alphys’s phone, turning everything a sickly burnt orange as their anger was allowed to manifest in burning globs of fallout shooting across the stage.

One of Mettaton’s arms fell away to their blows.

“I fought for you! I  _died_  for you! And how did you repay me? With lies!”

His other arm soon fell away. Lights were blaring overhead. Music roared through the room with enough force to make the walls shake. Yet it did not drown out her jaded cries.

Nanobots came parachuting down from the ceiling, throwing little biting explosives at her; snapping like firecrackers and burning her skin like her mother’s old cigarettes. Burning her like the fire that had consumed Chara’s old life not once, but twice. The stink of her own singed hair only served to make those memories all the more vivid.

Chara drank them in. Eager to feed on suffering that was not her own. Egging Rain on with whispers, reminders, suggestions.

“But that’s ok. I lied too.  Do you hear me, Alphys? I lied to you!” She tried to stave him off with an array of ugly burnt light from her soul but she was struggling to control Alphys’s invention. No one had told her how to use it properly. Her aim was terrible and her patterns ham-fisted and clumsy.

Mettaton continued to dance, the wild glee of being in the spotlight painting his silver and magenta frame despite the fact he was losing ground. He stabbed at them with his heels, swift and sharp. Death by stilettos would be a sad way to go.

His heel came down against her phone, cracking it. The golden light faded away from her soul, leaving only the angry, seeping red. “Sorry darling but it looks like you’re all out of bullets!”

Rain was too angry to care. “I lied every time I said it didn’t hurt. I lied every time they asked if they should stop the tests and I said told them I could handle it. I lied every time I said Chara was the only one who was scared!”

Chara had her back now, wire cutters in hand. They dogged around the flying heels and little by little, began to hack away at his legs.

He burned her.

She healed.

He kicked her in the chest, sending her flying across the room.

She got back up.

He flung whips of lighting at her, scoring the sides of the stage with burn marks.

She kept going.

Chara was healing her, pouring everything she had into helping her stay up. She had waited so long for this. She was so hungry. So empty.

Mettaton’s expression began to falter. He tried to appease the distant audience with quips and quotes but Rain began to see it in his eyes: the fear of knowing he had bitten off more than he could chew.

Good. Good let him be afraid. Let him feel the fear she had felt down in that lab. Let him  ** _suffer_**.

One of his legs fell away. He began to hop.

Old memories reopened like oozing wounds as she looked back on a long list of people who had used her.  **Lied**  to her.

She tried to throw those memories away.

They came back.

“What do you plan to do if you get out of here?” Mettaton questioned, ducking and diving as he somehow managed to outpace her with only one leg. “Asgore still blocks the way. No one has ever gotten past him. Even if you do, would you really be willing to rob the entire Underground of their king?”

She had tried to give herself up. She had tried to die. She had tried to run. Once upon a time she had tried to throw her soul into the deepest, darkest pit she could find.

But it came back.

“You would hardly count as dead if you let me take your soul, right darling? So just! Hold! Still!” An arc of gold and blue electricity jumped from his core, burning her wrists as she cut at his leg. “We could be a charming duo. The killer robot and the murderous human: learning kindness at last in death. This body has more than enough room for a second soul, darling, so why not give up and come with me? We can leave together. This could be your redemption arc!”

“Why are you so damn enthusiastic about taking my soul?” She screamed, lashing out in frustration.

He laughed; a thin nervous note as her wire cutters bit a little too deep and a little too close for comfort. “Isn’t it obvious? I know what you are and I think I am starting to remember what you have done, what you are capable of. I’m not all too thrilled with the idea of letting you go so you can continue with your usual pattern.

“I also know what the king will do with you if  _he_  wins. He would wage war upon humanity and not all monsters have a metal body to protect them in that scenario, darling. Truth be told, there are still people in this world that I wish to protect. So I have to try.”

Her weapon found its mark. His last leg popped out of place and fell to the ground, useless. What remained of the glamorous robot fell to the floor with a graceless thump, his final arcing bolt of magic knocking her back as he fell. He tried to muster up another round of attacks but he was out of nanobots and his bolts of electricity went wide, quickly losing potency as his body gave off sparks and he lost his focus. Mettaton’ eyes widened as he found himself to be nothing more than a helpless stump, looking into the bloodshot eyes of his attacker as she pulled herself back to her feet on the other side of the room.

He strained to face the cameras as the room began to fall into darkness as one by one the stage light winked out.

Rain began to close the distance, each step slow and deliberate, ignoring the feeble sparks he sent her way.

He tried to smile as the lights went out. He did not want his last goodbye to be sad. “Well, it looks like this is the end. I have been defeated at last!” His voice shook as he tried to remain in character, hoping his audience wouldn’t catch on to the reality of the situation.  “What a stunning conclusion to this season’s finale, right human?”

She marched forward in silence.

“I-I hope everyone has enjoyed the show!” In a slightly less grandiose tone, perhaps too soft for his audience to hear, he bowed his head and whispered. “Who knows when I’ll be back, right?” He took a deep, synthetic breath and pressed on as the TV feeds rapidly began to shut off around him. “To my viewers, my fans…my friends. Thank you. You have been a great audience!”

The last of the spotlights shut off and the blinking red lights on the cameras died. Several screens in the back flipped on to display a sea of commercials and emergency “intermission” messages. The world wasn’t watching them now.

The gaudy overconfidence melted off of Mettaton like hot wax. He bowed his head, chuckling through his teeth. “I guess you are not so bad after all, are you, darling?  At least you let me have my last words. It would have been rather embarrassing if they saw you kill me on my own show.” He forced himself to look up at her. “I know you haven’t been given a good deal in life, but try as you might, I don’t think you are as bad as you try to be. Perhaps my first impressions of you were wrong. You won’t really hurt humanity, will you?” When she ignored his question he took at deep breath closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”

She stood poised over him, her anger radiating off of her in waves. Her breathing was ragged and she couldn’t stop shaking, her teeth grinding together.

The only sound left on the stage was the soft rhythmic hum of his own machinery. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the weapon to drop. Yet he was greeted only by silence, the humans breathing beginning to slow.

“What are you doing?” Chara demanded aloud, voice raw. “Kill him. This is what you wanted.  _Kill him_!” This was it. The battle was over. They had won. One blow to his soul and he would be gone.

Her mussels strained against the effort of keeping her weapon steady. The wire cutters seemed impossibly heavy and eager to be brought down in that moment. Truth be told, she was not fighting Chara. She was fighting with herself.

“Who?” She demanded through her teeth.

Mettaton cracked open one eye. “What?”

“Who? Who do you want to protect? Who is so important to you that you were willing to do something so  _stupid_  in order to try and protect them!”

Mettaton opened his mouth, for a brief moment thinking to provide her with a list of his closest friends and family; the people he had left behind in his hunt for fame. The people he wished he could call one last time. But in the end he stopped himself. His expression softened into a sad smile. A peaceful smile.

“Everyone, darling. Even the ones you don’t think deserve it anymore.”

She hung over him, eyes shaded by the shadows of half a dozen screens all displaying the intermission signal.

Was Papyrus still watching her? Was he waiting for the show to come back? Did he still believe in her?

She swallowed hard, closing her eyes and letting out a short huff of breath. Hah. Who was she kidding? Of course he did.  

The wire cutters slipped from her hands. They clattered to the floor, the sound seeming far too loud for their weight.

Mettaton seemed completely taken by surprise.

“Good.” Behind her a phone was ringing. It went to voice mail. “Now try and remember this the next time you run into some of those people you were so willing to die for.”

A soft, quiet voice came in over the phone, plagued by a faint buzz thanks to the damage the speaker had taken during all the chaos. “Mettaton? Hello? Are you there? I saw something about a viewer call-in milestone before the feed cut out. …Are you ok?”

Mettaton seemed to recognize the timid voice. Rain ignored it. “Fans will get just as much entertainment out of watching their idol fly as they will watching them fall. It’s your family, blood or otherwise, who will be there waiting to help pick up all your ugly little pieces after that crowd is done with you.”

The call ended, cutting off the shy fan mid-sentence.

“And darling, there are going to be  _so many_  ugly pieces.”

Mettaton opened his mouth as if to say something but was cut short when Rain kicked him in the face, knocking him over with a loud crack. A few sparks shot up into the air before his eyes went dark.

“So if you wake up, go visit your damn cousin, you platinum brand asshole.”

Chara peered over her shoulder, giddy and excited.  _“Is he dead? Did you kill him? I don’t feel any different.”_

Rain stared at him for a while before shrugging helplessly, arms limp. She was still angry but kicking him helped her feel a little better. Sort of.

She glanced at the cameras again. She sure hoped Papyrus hadn’t seen  _that_.

“Come on. Let’s go.” She lumbered off towards the other end of the room where the exit was. At roughly the same time, the door behind her finally opened and Alphys tumbled through.

“Oh god! Mettaton!” She darted over to him, picking her way through the shrapnel and disembodied limbs. “Oh, please don’t be dead. P-please don’t be dead. I’m s-so s-sorry I talked you into this!” She set down a box of tools and started looking him over, not wasting any time in her attempts to pry open the circuitry in his chest to see what could be salvaged.

She didn’t realize that Rain still stood in the darkness up against the wall until the back door sensed her close proximity and slid open, allowing a stark eerie light to turn her into a dark silhouette.

Alphys froze, trembling hands clutching at a screwdriver. Her eyes went wide with fear. “R-Rain. I, uh, I didn’t know you were st-still here.”

Chara began to whisper to her once more; smirking lips pressed against her ear. Her hunger was a hot fire in Rain’s chest.  _“There she is. The one behind all of your hurting. The one who was going to let you rot down there with those_ things _.”_

“I-I-I know y-you are pr-probably really mad right now. But, ah, um, I c-can explain?”

_“Think of all the monsters she has hurt. Think of all the people she has put in danger to preserve her own image. Think of all the **lies** she has told you.”_

Something beeped. Alphys glanced down at Mettaton and for a brief moment she seemed to forget Rain was there. “Oh! Oh, th-thank god! The battery just got disconnected.”

Rain’s voice remained somewhat cold. “He will be ok?”

Alphys tried to smile up at her but her teeth were chattering. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “I-I think so. I- for a second there I thought you had killed him!”

Rain turned around and slipped out of the room. “Yeah. Me too.”

***

They was nearly to the elevator when Alphys caught up with them again. Rain had to give her credit for being ballsy enough to stick her nose out of the room after everything that had happened. “W-wait! Where are you going?”

Her response remained clipped. “To find Asgore.”

Alphys’s let out a quiet squeak after a long pause. “Please don’t.”

Rain spun around, glaring daggers at her. Alphys shrank away. “Why? Why not? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t go and end this already!”

Alphys tapped her claws together and struggled to find the right words. Fat tears were rolling down her cheeks in a steady stream now. “I’m s-sorry I did this to you. I’m s-s-so sorry I lied to you. To everyone. Ooh! Sans warned me not to do this! W-why didn’t I listen?” She buried her face in her hands and sobbed. “I was just s-so scared. I didn’t know wh-what you would do if you found out I c-couldn’t help you... or  if y-you saw what happened to the last people I tried to help. A-and Undyne said she wanted to tell Asgore about you and I just- I just- it’s not fair!” Her knees gave out and she sat down with a thud on the floor. She didn’t bother to pick herself up, she kept sobbing.

In a much softer, more broken voice she repeated herself. “It’s just not fair... I knew that if he knew for sure were to f-find you, and if I c-couldn’t fix you, you two would have to fight.  But… Asgore is my friend too.  He’s not perfect, but he’s still a pretty good guy. The Underground needs him.”  She pounded the ground in frustration, a soft thud against the distant yet universal hum of the Core. “Why do I have to let one of my friends die to save the other one? Why should one of you have to d-die b-because I m-messed up?

“I d-didn’t want to see anyone else get hurt. S-s-so thought that i-if you did ok with Mettaton, th-the Underground would love you and I could convince you to stay. Asgore couldn’t kill you if you were the Ungeround’s star. He couldn’t kill you if keeping you alive gave everyone Hope.” She hiccuped and dabbed at her nose with the corner of her coat. She tried to compose herself. “But I even managed to mess  _that_  up! And now I get to watch one of my friends die while the other one walks away absolutely miserable.”

 _“What a miserable creature.”_ Chara teased, unaware of the subtle irony of her statement. 

Rain’s expression softened a little. But only a little. “I will try and give him a fighting chance, Alphys. Who knows, maybe he will be fast enough to catch me and take my soul. I wouldn’t be mad if he did.”

Alphys shook her head vigorously. “He can’t. He…he can’t. Th-that’s one of the reasons I made that stupid flower in the first place. Because Asgore needed something that could hold s-souls for him.” She dabbed at her eyes. She was calming down now. She looked drained. “He’s carrying too much guilt to keep himself together with seven souls inside of him. Every time he has tried to absorb one, they rebel. Most of the souls are too angry with him to cooperate. Even if he could control them long enough to absorb them all, without the s-souls compliance all that Determination would make him melt.

“Besides, Chara already has your soul. A-as long as you two are t-together, he can’t catch you. Not without using a significant amount of power to separate you two first. That power isn’t something we have.”

Rain stared out at nothing. It felt like the floor had been ripped out from under her again.

More secrets.

Or were they more lies? Either way, it was not good.

Chara turned her anger into more whispering, guiding Rain’s eyes to the Royal Scientist, who was leaning against the wall now and shaking her head in defeat.  _“Look at her. What a pitiful creature. You know, she could be lying. She could be trying to trick you again.”_

“Rain?” Alphys looked at her out of the corner of her eye then lowered her gaze. “Oh. I… I know that look. You’re Chara now, aren’t you?”

Had it become so easy to tell when her thoughts turned dark? Did she really look like Chara? The thought was enough to give her pause. 

“What are you- what are you going to do to me?” She didn’t seem scared. Just sad. Sad and resigned.

“ _It would be easy you know. She’s not that strong. She’s got low HP, remember? After she is gone the monsters could get a_ real _scientist to replace her. One that doesn’t tell **lies**. You would be doing everyone a favor. She’s not a good person. She doesn’t deserve mercy.”_

Rain snorted.  _“You are probably right. She doesn’t.”_  She thought, turning her back and walking away. “Go fix your robot, Alphys.” She droned. I need to take some time to think.”

_“But then again, neither did we.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *adds another mark to the "this story made my sister cry" tally*  
> * From this point on, Sans will use proper capitalization.  
> Ohhh boy has keeping track of capitalization been hard! Having to go back and fix all the I's has been an...experience. Plus he would still use caps from time to time but only when talking about his relatives or (briefly) if he really, truly cared about something. Hopefully it didn't come off as me just forgetting to de-cap stuff when he did that.  
> I probably missed a few caps here and there- and going forward i found i had the opposite problem! Probably for a good four months after i finished the writing stage I kept forgetting to capitalize my stuff. xD


	50. Hypocrisy Can’t judge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hypocrisy Can’t judge  
> ~*~*~*~*~*~  
> Rain takes some time off to think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! Almost got the hard part of this done. There were some rough chapters that needed a lot of editing but i almost have them all in line now.  
> Finally managed to get this one to my sister last night. Poor thing got a summer job that had her working 60+ hours with shifts doing well past midnight with no days off, so obviously she had no reading time for a while. T-T poor thing. 
> 
>  
> 
> Its getting closer to the end. Can you believe it?

_“Even if he could control them long enough to absorb them all, without the soul’s compliance all the Determination from the human souls would make him melt.”_  

“ _As long as you two are together, no one can catch you. Not without using a significant amount of power to separate you two first.”_ The revelation gnawed at her. It frustrated her. It left a burning coil of baseless anger nestled in the deepest parts of her stomach. She tried to wrap her mind around it. She tried to justify it.

_“Asgore is my friend too. He’s not perfect, but he’s my friend. And, and the Underground needs him.”_

The world wasn’t fair. Why did it have to be so unfair?

Better they lose a king than their lives, right? She was protecting them. Somehow. Right?

She walked the familiar path to the castle. Once Mettaton’s cameras had stopped following her the world gave her a wide birth. Although some still recognized her and called out for autographs or asked how the story arc with Mettaton had ended, there was far less harassment to worry about now. Some of them even asked her about a second season.

She brushed them off and slipped away as best she could. The leisurely hustle and bustle of the capitol left her feeling queasy. Never before had she seen so much life down here. Never before had these roads not been empty and strewn with dust.

She did not know whether to call it a blessing or a curse when she reached the king’s home at long last. She gathered the keys, unlocked the chain and waited for Flowey; resigning herself to what she would have to do.

 _“Don’t beat yourself up over one little death. He’s not even a person anymore. He’s a thing. You could say you are protecting people. Somehow. Right?”_ Chara teased, not at all conflicted about the possible murder of her brother.

She waited.

And she waited.

But nobody came.

They walked the path between Asgore’s home and the castle but there was nothing. Neither vine nor flower reared its ugly head.

She looked for him. She hunted him. She knew he had to be watching. He always seemed to be watching.

But no one came.

_“You know he’s not stupid, right? He knows you are looking for him. He won’t show up until it’s time to break the king’s soul.”_

They flickered in and out of time, scouting across the city; rewinding the same hour over and over again until they started to feel the world strain under their restless exploits.

Every time her wandering stride took them near the Judgment Hall she stopped at the entrance and turned back. Flowey would be waiting in the throne room if she went in. She couldn’t risk that.

With a dull mix of relief and weary frustration Rain began to backtrack farther and farther away from the city. She found herself wandering out of New Home, walking over the glowing embers of Hotland and back towards Waterfall.

 It felt rather anticlimactic to come this far only to putter out in the doorway but she wasn’t about to risk getting stuck in a loop with Flowey like Chara had way back in the beginning. She may not understand the creature that had once been Asriel, as well as Chara did but she knew he enjoyed sticking his nose in things far too much to leave them alone forever. If she stalled long enough he would come after her again.

Besides, when she had dared to poke her head inside the golden hall, she could have sworn she had seen someone waiting for her in the shadow of one of the pillars. It could have easily been a figment of her imagination but it sent her scurrying away far faster than she cared to admit.

She wasn’t ready to do that yet. She wasn’t ready to face  _him_.

After all that time spent down in the lab she had allowed herself the foolish hope that maybe through some crazy miracle she wouldn’t have to hurt anyone anymore. She had been hoping that Asgore stood a fighting chance of turning this story around if she gave him a chance to catch her but now that was off the table too. Because if there was one constant in her world, it was that she was very bad at dying.

 “ _Where will you go now?”_ Chara asked in a state of boredom. She was frustrated by her brother’s absence too. For the first time in month’s Rain had been willing to do things her way but her brother had wizened up enough to complicate things for them once again. She had little choice but to wait him out but doing so would also give Rain time to calm down and get past the anger that had been driving her in the first place- which was not something Chara wanted her to do.

“Somewhere not far from here I guess. It’s a small world down here.” Rain admitted in defeat. She needed time to think. Chara had wasted a lot of energy trying to get her to kill in Hotland. She would be weak for the next few days while she collected herself. Without LOVE she felt far more frail than she had in the past.

She didn’t have anywhere to go. She would never again set foot in that Lab again and she sure as hell wasn’t going to trek all the way back to Snowdin. She could stand to see Papyrus but she wasn’t ready to look Sans in the eye if she could avoid it.

Undyne would have been a safe bet if she wasn’t so loud and conflicted. She probably hadn’t been in on the whole Little Lab of Horrors theme going on in the lower levels but she was probably pissed with how much paperwork Rain had doomed her too after the mess in Hotland.

Eventually Rain started walking, deciding to see where her feet would take her. Eventually that wanderings took her to the Waterfall Dump where she finally had the chance to stop and process what had happened.

Chara had been right about Alphys when she had warned Rain not to trust her. She may be cruel and manipulative but that wouldn’t stop her from being right about other things in the future. She would have to accept that sometimes Chara would be right about things. Maybe she should do a better job of listening next time.

Rain stuck to the back tunnels around the dump for a while longer, hoping it would tease Flowey out of hiding. Yet he remained hidden and she was left to wrack her brain for a new strategy. A new answer. A new way to thread this needle and find some sort of ending to this perpetual mess without shattering the fragile timeline.

She sat in the fake, perpetual rain that dripped from the stalactites above her and watched the distant silhouette of the castle. It was so close and yet so far away; awaiting her return.

She knew that there was an answer out there for her somewhere. It lingered at the edge of her vision and teetered on the tip of her tongue. She needed to see things from a different perspective but all the options she knew of where exhausted.

What were they going to do now?

***

It was probably two days later that her wanderings lead her back out into the open. By now all the excitement involving her TV spotlight had started to die down.

She drifted out into the dump and its trashy waterlogged chambers that carried the constant odor of wet dog and mold. The ledges were steepest here, there edges slick and sharp where the polluted swamp filtered out into one wide, trash-clogged waterfall that lead into a steep drop-off. A dark abyss with glowing moss wedged against steep platforms that told lies about where the true bottom of the near-lightless abyss really was, loomed up ahead.

It almost came as a surprise when she all but walked face first into Undyne, bumping against her chest when she rounded a particularly moldy corner of stacked couches.

“Nygah! Human!” She grunted, unmoving despite the force of their collision. She reached out and caught Rain by the arm and saved her from falling backwards into the muddy water. “What are you doing here?”

Rain blinked, rubbing her head with her free arm. It felt like she was already getting a bruise between her eyes. Despite everything she had been through, she still seemed to bruise easily. “Undyne? Didn’t expect to see you here.”

Her face flattened. “I live just up the road you dork. This is practically my front yard.” She flashed her a snarl. “So why are you trespassing on my turf, punk? Are you trying to pick up chicks here too? Because I don’t like competition!”

“Uhhh.” Rain rattled.

The snarl broke into a grin. “Fuhuhu! Nah, I’m just messing with ya.” She slapped Rain on the back hard enough to make her stumble. “But seriously, I’ll fuck you up if you hurt anyone.” Her face darkened again. “That shit you pulled in Hotland was not cool. You’re lucky you got out of there when you did. I had half a mind to kick your ass back there. I mean I get it, Mettaton strikes a nerve with me too and the kind of monsters that follow him around can be pretty…rambunctious. But you’re lucky everyone came out of that mess ok and I got trapped behind a mountain of paperwork all weekend when I was at my most pissed.” She rolled her shoulder to try and ease up the knots that started to twinge at the memory of leaning over a desk. “Anyway, since Mettaton had some pretty shady deals running under the table and he did sort of try to kill you, I have decided to let your side for the mess slide. I’m calling it self-defense. For now.” Her eyes narrowed. “But that can change.”

Rain frowned, taking a step back. “Thanks?”

Undyne cleared her throat and pushed back a few stray hairs that had escaped her ponytail. “Actually, uh, I have been meaning to ask you about what happened back there. After the cameras went off. Did… did Alphys show up at any point?” It was subtle but she saw Undyne’s hands curl. A fain blue glow began to pool behind her fingers and her mussels drew taunt.

Rain’s lip twitched and she tasted bile at the memory. “Yeah. Yeah she was there.”

Undyne must have caught the lingering grudge hiding in her voice. She didn’t say anything but she worked her jaw into knots, yellow eye sharp and dangerous.

“She was sweeping Mettaton up off the floor last I saw her.” Rain explained in a hurry, not wanting to get accused of killing one of the Captain’s friends again. “I assumed they would be going back to the lab.”

The tension in Undyne’s shouldered eased a bit. “Sounds like her.” She rumbled, rubbing at her neck.

“Why do you ask? Is she missing?”

Undyne paused for a moment like she wasn’t sure if she should trust Rain with the truth. “It’s probably nothing, but did you hear her say anything about going somewhere? I have been trying to contact her ever since you ran off but I think she’s…avoiding me? And whenever I go to the Lab she’s not there. No note or anything.”

Rain crossed her arms. “Did you check all the levels of the lab? Down to level twelve?” She couldn’t quite keep a drop of bitterness from contaminating her words.

“That thing has  _twelve_  levels?”

Well at least she knew Undyne hasn’t been a part of that mess. “Unfortunately.”

Undyne looked around, seeming reluctant to leave. “Well, I guess that’s a start. I will go check there after I’m done here.”

Rain’s defensive walls began to crack a little when she realized how worried Undyne was. Her expression softened a little. “She really hasn’t said anything? To anyone? Not even Sans?”

“I don’t think so. But I know she likes to come here to unwind sometimes so I was hoping I would find her on my lunch break.”

Rain made an overly complaintive sigh. “Well I guess I can tell you if I see her.”

But she wasn’t going to go looking for her.

Nope.

Still too pissed for that. 

But if she  _did_ see her, she could stand to swallow her bitterness long enough to let Alphys know her friends were worried about her.

Her  _other_ friends.

Not her.

Undyne nodded and said a few words of thanks before they parted ways, leaving Rain to slog through wrappers and old cardboard.

Rain drifted with the intention of leaving, trying to casually make her way back to solid ground. Yet the walls of junk literally piled up against her efforts. Choosing between waist deep water filled with rusted shrapnel or taking the long way around, she found herself taking the most indirect paths possible to get out.

And then, sure enough, she spotted a little scrap of white and yellow out of the corner of her eye.

She froze, looking straight ahead and contemplating what to do. If she didn’t turn to look she could still claim she was ignorant.

But she looked. Dammit, of course she looked.

Alphys was huddled off against the lip of a waterfall.

Well, now she could tell Undyne where to find her. End of story.

Rain goaded herself into moving again and turned to walk away.

_“Curious. Do you think she means to jump?”_

Rain bit her tongue and growled. “Well  _now_  I do!”

Chara cracked a tired smirk. A little too tired to be overly zealous right now. “ _I don’t suppose I could convince you to push her, could I? It would be funny to watch her fall. Could you imagine what her face would look like?”_

“Why do you find death so funny?” Rain snapped, turning around and trudging against the current, muttering curses with every step.

_“Because even though it tries, even though I deserve it, the reaper can never catch me!”_

Alphys had inched closer to the ledge now; shoulders hunched and her toes gripping the edge as she peeked over the lip into oblivion.

Rain cleared her throat but didn’t know what she was going to say until she started speaking. “Well this is a surprise. Didn’t expect to see you here. Thought you would still be working on your friend.”

Alphys flinched when Rain’s voice managed to carry itself over the roar of the water. She glanced over her shoulder, shrinking in on herself.  “Wha-What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at the castle?”

Rain crossed her arms. “Maybe. Shouldn’t you be a standing a safe distance away from that ledge?”

Her face turned an embarrassed shade of orange. She looked away and mumbled, “J-just leave me alone.”

Rain looked around, hoping against hope that Undyne would reappear. Hoping someone else would come deal with this for her. The last time she had had to try and convince someone not to jump, she had fallen into the Underground and created a genocidal time loop. She did not have a good track record with this kind of stuff.

But there was no sign of Undyne, or any other monster for that matter. She got the district feeling that if she left to go find someone, Alphys wouldn’t be here when she got back.  “Come on Al. Undyne is worried about you. Make my life easier and step away from the ledge.”

Alphys ducked her head. “Undyne would be better off without me.”

 _“Well that’s true.”_  Chara snarked.

Rain made a sound that sat somewhere between two different kinds of annoyed. She slogged out of the water and swung her legs over an old broken table before sliding up next to the contemplative scientist.

Alphys took half a step away from her. “What are you doing? I-if y-you are trying to intimidate me or, or tell me what a bad person I am or… or something, it’s not going to work. Th-theres nothing left you can do to hurt me that I haven’t already done to myself.”

Rain shook her head and leaned back against her palms. “I am painfully aware of that.”

There was an awkward silence where Rain could only click her heels together before she finally scraped together something to say when she didn’t want to say anything at all. “Undyne will be a mess if you go.”

“…No she won’t.”

“She’s scared. You know why I think she carries a spear instead of the usual sword and shield?”

“Because she still can’t conjure swords as big as the ones in anime?”  Alphys retorted without enthusiasm.

“Because she’s the shield. It’s all or nothing with her. She’s not interested in protecting herself if it means surviving when she’s lost what she wants to fight for. She’s not as strong as you think she is. Trust me; I have seen what happens to her when she thinks she has failed. She breaks in a way that doesn’t get fixed.” She shrugged to herself, nodding her head in thought. “Sans would handle it ok though. I think something hollowed him out a long time ago. Long before I got here.” Her lip twitched, eyes lowered in a silent vigil for something that had been lost before she had ever had a chance to know it. “But not Undyne. Could you imagine? Losing her best friend and Asgore back to back?”

Alphys sagged, feet sliding out from under her until she collapsed onto the wet stone.  “Why are you even here, Rain? Didn’t you go to the castle? Did you…?”

Rain shrugged helplessly. “No. He’s still up there. Hiding. While I’m down here. Hiding.” She swung her legs back and forth, letting them dangle over the edge. The rocks were slick with slime but she didn’t care. Even the contemplative Alphys took more care to secure herself than she did. Maybe Chara was right. Death was almost funny when you knew it couldn’t catch you.

“I’m still trying to come to terms with all the shit that’s happened this week, Al.  I’m trying to calm down and clear my head so I don’t make a stupid, rushed decision. I thought I had a handle on what was going on but now everything is in question again. I don’t know who or what to trust.”

 “D-don’t blame anyone else for this. Please. I-it was all m-my fault. No one else knew w-what I did in the lab- what I was  _doing_. How-how could they? How c-could I tell Asgore what happened to all those nice monsters? How c-could I ever t-tell their families what I did? How was I…how was I supposed to tell you I couldn’t help you when turning you away meant d-de-destroying the timeline?” She choked. “Not even Undyne kn-knows about all the stuff I have hidden down there.” She buried her face in her hands to hide the tears. “S-she would hate me if she knew. They all would. Just like you do. I ca-can’t seem to stop telling lies!”

“Yeah. You really screwed things up, didn’t you?” She flicked a few pebbles over the edge, lips pressed into a sour line.

 _“Brutal, Rain.”_ Chara complemented.

Rain let out a deep sigh. Dammit. That was a shitty thing to say. It was hard to be sincere when she was still angry.

Alphys bowed her head. “I really did.”

“Sans knew though, didn’t he?” She stared off at nothing, jaw set. “He knew. When he dances around the truth you can see it in his eyes. His eyes don’t smile like the rest of him.”

“Don’t… please don’t be mad at him.” She sniffed, reaching out a hand and then withdrawing it; shrinking in on herself. “He… He wanted to tell you. He b-brought it up a lot. You sh-should have seen how… how  _mad_  he was when that Memoryhead found you.”

 _“Memoryhead. Is that what they called it then? Fitting.”_ Chara growled.

“A-and he warned me not to use Mettaton, too. We argued ab-b-bout it a lot. B-but then he made me t-tell him about the flower a-a-and when he left I just decided to…decided too…” She trailed off helplessly.

Rain snorted. “Don’t make excuses for him. Sans is a grown-ass man. He could have come clean but he didn’t. He chose not to do anything. Again.” She rubbed at her temple, trying to keep herself from full on shouting. Shouting wouldn’t help. Shouting at someone who wanted to jump was dumb and not ok. She had chosen to look the other way and let Chara do a lot of horrible things in the past but if she drove Alphys to jump that  would be on her, not Chara.

Dammit. Why did she have to be so shit with words?

“You know, I have never been angry with Sans for all the things he’s done to me. I put him in a tough spot back then.” She picked up a hefty stone and tossed it as hard as she could, loading all of her anger into it and discarding it. “I have always been more upset about all the times he’s done nothing. I am trying to fix things and he’s still acting like none of it matters.

“That was the worst part of finding all of that stuff down in the lab, Alphys. I was suffering the ramifications of what someone else didn’t do.” She rubbed her face and cursed under her breath. “Why didn’t you ask for help? Why didn’t you say something?  _Anything_! I told you everything about myself, even the things that were dark and disgusting. I would have listened if you had told me the truth. Maybe I could have used my powers for good. I could have helped. ”

“Y-you’re right. You’re right, I should have told someone s-sooner.” She sobbed. “But I-it’s too late now. Everyone will hate me. If I tell them…everyone will leave.”

Rain leaned forward, peering up at her, flickers of concern breaking past her own bitterness. “So, what? Your big plan is to beat them to the punch? Leave them before they can leave you?”

Alphys looked down into the darkness. “At least by the time th-they realize what a horrible person I am, they will a-already be rid of me.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Undyne will be fine. Once sh-she knows what I’m really like, sh-she’ll be fine.”

Rain looked into the depths with her. “Maybe. Or maybe not. You know, Undyne was pretty nice to me despite all the stuff I’ve done so who knows how she will take it. If your wrong you won’t be around to fix it, will you?”

“Ev-every time I try to fix anything I j-just m-make it worse!” Alphys picked up a handful of trash and began to tear off little soggy pieces of it, flicking them off into the abyss. A sheepish laugh shook her shoulders. “Y-you know that better than anyone. I don’t even know what made you decide to talk to me again. After all the gross stuff I did, I don’t deserve it.”

Rain snorted, hands clenching a little. Her voice rose. “You are probably right. Your lies almost got all your friends ki-.” She cut herself off, wincing at her own crass behavior. Chara giggled, for once not having to do any goading at all. “Sorry. Sorry, you don’t need to hear any of that. I shouldn’t have raised my voice.” She ran a hand through her hair, laughing nervously. “I’m not very good at this and I’m still very upset right now. But I shouldn’t have said that. You didn’t deserve that backlash.”

Alphys tried to offer a smile of understanding. The tips of her teeth were barely visible. She looked tired. Tired in a way all too familiar to Rain. “I-its ok. I know… I know Chara has been hard o-on you the past couple days.”

Rain shook her head. “As tempting as it would be to use her as my scapegoat, that was me. Just good ol Rain: being a jerk. I can still get angry, Alphys. I’m nothing special. Not everything dark inside of me is made up exclusively of Chara. I’m still a person. A person who has her own set of flaws. A person who got stuck like this because I gave up my free agency in my attempt to escape from my problems in a similar fashion as you. So as someone who has been down this road before, I don’t recommend going through with this.” She looked over the edge, watching the soft pulse of the glowing moss and algae down below. She had tried to find the bottom of the chasm a few times in the past but had always been brought back to life.

“But anyway, I won’t try and stop you if you do it.”

Alphys blinked in surprise at the sudden one-eighty the conversation had taken. “What?”

Rain shrugged. “You would be surprised how many times I have sat on this ledge, Alphys. Or others like it. To be honest it’s infuriating; losing your right to die. I, uh, I never actually told anyone outright- I assume Sans has guessed it though-but that’s how I ended up here in the first place. You, um, you don’t usually climb a mountain like this one expecting to come back down again.”

Alphys’s eyes widened in surprise. “Oh…oh! Rain, I didn’t…”

Rain waved her away. “Don’t. It’s fine. Look, I can’t tell you everything will be ok in the end because I haven’t reached the end yet myself. I don’t know if things really do get better like people say. So if you really do want to go, you can. I’m tired of playing with people’s lives. But let me tell you something else about my fall.” She pointed off into the depths, near a particularly large clump of moss. “Right about there.  Do you see the clump that kind of looks like a little dog? That’s about how far I fell in the Ruins before I realized I had made a mistake. That’s how far I fell before I wished I could take it all back. But I couldn’t. I just kept falling and falling and, well, Chara found me at the bottom. She helped me get back up for a price but even she couldn’t help me take back the fall.

“So if you go, and then change your mind half way down like I did, all you have to do is yell. I’ll reload for you, free of charge. No demon pact required. I’ll come back to the dump, we can sit back down again like we are right now and, well, we will keep talking until you figure this out.”

Alphys fidgeted, claws tapping together. “Um, tha-that sounds pretty- gosh that’s kind of dark. I mean I appreciate-but- I don’t…” Her shoulders sagged a little. “Y-you would do that for me?”

Rain gave her a serious look. “Who’s to say I haven’t done it already?”

Alphys’s mouth fell open in new realization. “Um, Rain? H-how many times have we…done this? How long have we been here?” She was looking into the chasm now with unease. She stared at that little dog-shaped patch of glowing moss, wondering if she had already passed it in a different timeline.

Rain looked out across the black expanse, its walls devoid of the fake glimmering stars that decorated the rest of the caverns. They could hear Undyne calling Alphys’s name somewhere off in the distance; a howl in the windless tunnels. “Long enough.”

Alphys laughed nervously and took off her glasses to clean the lenses. “I-I don’t know what to do.”

Rain shrugged. “Come clean. Tell the truth. Fix the things you can, accept the things you can’t. Not all our options in life are easy, Alphys. But I know you can manage them if you ask for help.”

“I don’t know if they will forgive me.”

Rain rolled her eyes. “ _I_ forgive you, Alphys.”

 _“What!”_ Chara shrieked, jaded and uncomprehending.  _“No. No you don’t! You are **lying**. You don’t forgive her. You are angry. You are hurt. I can still feel it!”_

“Or, well, I will forgive you. Eventually. I’m still pissed right now. I’m hurt and I’m scared. Scared of a part of myself I uncovered in Hotland. Scared of what’s going to happen to the people I care about. Scared that no one seems to have any solution that could work. But you seem to have forgotten something pretty important about monsters and, well, people in general.”

“W-what’s that?”

“That no one is perfect. People are people and people fuck up. If all of your friends have managed to find a way to forgive  _me_  for all of the horrible things I have done, then I think they can forgive you too. As long as you promise to actually work at being a better person, what kind of hypocrite would I be if I held a grudge against you?” She sucked in a deep breath and shook her head. “After all the things I have done and failed to do, I have no right to pass judgment anymore.”

Alphys stood up and shuffled in place, turning to look at the trash heap behind them. “I don’t know if I can do it. I-I’m not as strong as you. I have a lot of sins crawling on my back.”

Rain smirked. “I know the feeling. But no one starts out strong. I know I didn’t. And whatever I am, I am a far cry from something worth looking up to.”

Alphys took a deep breath and set her jaw, braced against her own resolve. “I-I guess i-if I want to make things right, I should s-start with you then, huh?”

“Please do.”

“Then I guess- I guess there is something you should know. I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to have to take part in it but…” She looked at the ground. “But I guess it’s never really been my right to choose your ending for you.”

***

They spoke for who knows how long, Alphys shedding a few more secrets she had been keeping to herself before Undyne finally found them.

“Alphys!” She splashed through the murky water, her worry hidden behind a mask of overly loud words and a grin pulled a little too wide, likes the one Sans often wore.

Rain stepped away then, watching from several yards back as Alphys shuffled up to Undyne. She couldn’t hear the words they were saying over the roar of the waterfall but she could guess at what was being said by the way they reacted to each other.

Finally Undyne knelt down and pulled Alphys into a hug far more tender than Rain had ever assumed she was capable of.

Alphys cried into her shoulder for a while, drained, relieved and confused by acceptance. When she finally got ahold of herself again Undyne stepped away for a brief moment to talk to Rain.

She clapped a hand on her shoulder. “Ah, thanks. For finding her.” She whispered; her voice a little more husky and uneven than usual.

Rain raised an eyebrow. “See? You have to stop assuming everyone that goes missing is my fault.”

Undyne gave her a guilty look. “Right. Sorry about that.”

“Just don’t make it a habit.”

Undyne caught the wry sarcasm but let it pass. “Well, I’m going to take her back to the lab now. Help her sort things out. Get those…get those monsters back to their families if we can.”

Rain nodded. “You ok?”

She rubbed at her face, fins drooping. “No. But I will be. It’s a lot to take in. I mean, I knew she had to be hiding something but this is a lot.” Her eye seemed distant and glazed. “She even said anime wasn’t real.” She laughed to herself then, overly loud. “But I think that part was a joke. Right?” She may have been squeezing Rain’s shoulder a little harder than she intended to in that moment. "Right?" 

Rain laughed with her and put a hand on her shoulder as well. It didn’t have nearly the same effect. It only served to make Rain feel short and clumsy, like a toddler trying to imitate its parent. Yet her voice rang with confidence all the same. “Undyne, trust me,  _you_ are the anime. So even if the world doesn’t have as many massive swords and women to wield them as you were hoping for, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Her fins perked up and her cheeks purpled a little. She gave her a solid slap on the back that nearly dunked her in the water. “Hah! You’re probably right. Thanks punk.” She glanced back at Alphys and she turned awkward once more. “Well, uh, I better get back to her. Those rocks are kind of slick, you know? Don’t want her to slip and hurt herself. You gonna be ok out here by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine.” She looked off towards the capitol. “Alphys helped me figure some things out.”

“Alright, well, call us if you need anything. Kinda owe you one, I guess.”

Rain waved goodbye and they parted ways. She paused only long enough to look over her shoulder before Alphys and Undyne were be blocked from view by the serpentine walls of the cavern.

Alphys had shed her tear-stained lab coat to reveal a nice polka-dot dress hidden underneath. The two of them each took a coat sleeve and tossed it into the abyss, standing side by side as they watched it flutter and twist down into the darkness where it could be forgotten.

 Its owner having finally shed its sins at last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone was interested in the Lyrics to Rain's version of Megalovania so I posted them [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11878800)


	51. You’re Gonna Go Far Kid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’re Gonna Go Far Kid
> 
> ~*~*~*~*  
> We interrupt this drama lama for a snack intermission! Who wants breadsticks? Salad? Salad and breadsticks? No? Because thats literally all we got.

It only took a few minutes to get back to Hotland. It was embarrassing to be honest. One quick boat ride and a hop in an elevator and suddenly all that distance she had put between herself and the capitol vanished like fog beneath the sun. It made her realize how silly it was to run down here. It made her feel like a child who had told her parents she was running away from home to go live on her own only to end up hiding in the back yard behind the trees.

Only a few hours ago she had been staring at the castle across the vast distance of a black lake, enjoying the illusion of rain. Now she was half way to the castle again, staring out across the other end of the same black lake.

She made her way up to the MTT resort. Its bright lights flashed against the distant waters of the lake on one side and competed with the magma glow of Hotland on the other. Its back was bathed in the cool blue glow of the humming core.

Her mind circled around itself like two nervous fish caught in a too-small bowl. Alphys had told her something back in the dump that had finally given her a choice and now her stomach was doing nervous flips, her mind bounced back and forth between her two choices, the new and the old. There was a way out. Just not for everyone.

_“It’s a stupid idea. More lies. Do you really want to risk your precious timeline on something that liar told you? Flowey is still out there. I’m still in here. If you mess up I will drag you back. All of this will be undone.”_

“Maybe.” She pulled open the door to the resort.

“Heya.”

She jumped, backing out of the door’s threshold and spinning to look into the alleyway off to the side. Sans was leaning up against the wall, hands tucked into his pockets like always. “Been lookin all over for ya. Busy week, huh?”

She took a step back, gracing him with a confused frown. Why was he here? He was never here. He was always waiting in the hall.

“What? Surprised to see me?”

Her frown deepened. “Kind of. I usually don’t see you until the very end.”

He looked off into the warm glow of Hotland. “Well surprised to say, things change.” He pushed himself away from the wall and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Was just about to go in and grab a bite to eat. Wanna join?”

“What? Not in the mood for Grillby’s for once?”

Sans rubbed at the back of his neck and laughed. “You could say that. You could also say I have a pretty hefty tab over there that hasn’t been reset yet. So: MTT, fine dining, no tabs- you in?”

She shook her head at the absurdity of his situation. She wanted to tell him to pay his damn tab but chances were he had the right idea about all this. There was a good chance it  _would_  get reset soon. “I suppose.” She said slowly, easing up a little. It didn’t look like he was going to come after her about the whole Hotland mess.

“Great. Thanks for treating me.” He gave her a playful wink, then noticed the look she was giving him. “Hey now what’s that look for? I don’t bite.”

“Only if that statement is taken in the most literal of ways.” She muttered. “I just ditched the lab and mauled half the residents of Hotland. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop with you like it usually does.”

“Well, they all made it out ok in the end, right? I’m not here to get you on a technicality. Actually, since it looks like you have made up your mind and are headed back to the castle, I was hoping to extend the olive branch before you go. I know you are not too happy about the whole lab thing but uh, I appreciate what you did back there. With Alphys. Both times.”

“News must travel fast in the Underground.”  She yanked the door back open, suspicious of whether or not he had seen things first hand. “Are we going in or not?”

He tilted his head towards the alleyway. “Nah. Follow me. I know a shortcut.”

When they were out of view of the nonexistent onlookers and fully cloaked in the shadows of the back wall, he held out a hand.

She looked down at his hand in annoyance. “Seriously? You’re doing this now? The door was right there.” He shrugged and she took his hand despite her grumbling. She squeezed her eyes shut against the uncomfortable feeling of falling through  _Nothing_  and ending up back in  _Something_.

He helped steady her with a firm hand on her arm when they popped back into reality inside of a familiar fancy looking restaurant. “Sorry. This place makes you reserve everything up front. It’s easier to slip in through the back and say you did go through all the formalities when you didn’t. Over here. This spot looks good. Sorry about the chairs.”

There were no chairs.

They had not been reserved.

“That guy over there looks like he’s almost done with his seats. When he is I’ll see if he’ll let us borrow ‘em.”

Rain looked around. She had been in this place before but now that it was being properly managed by all the monsters that had usually been evacuated by this point, it gave off the aura of being far too fancy for someone like her to feel particularly welcome in. The lighting was soft and tinted with blue, giving the cool colors of the room a sleepy yet luxurious feel to them. The area had great air conditioning, causing the smoldering heat of Hotland to feel as if it was nothing more than a passing thought one had had on their way in. The rush hour had long passed, leaving only a few well-dressed stragglers to talk over dessert. Gentle laughter and the soft chime of clinking glasses sounded almost like rain and wind chimes in the background.

Up on stage a group of monsters were playing a lazy jazz tune.

She felt like any second now she was going to hear a rugged detective start off a narration about his latest case while rain tapped on the window outside, the whole world turning black and white like an old movie.

Hah. Rain.  Funny how much she had come to miss the thing she had been named after.

Her eyes drifted up towards the ceiling, something sad and cold clutching at her heart. Oh well. Perhaps it was raining for her somewhere else.

A waitress came to take their orders. Sans ordered the free salad and breadsticks for the both of them and let the waitress pour them some water before waving her off.

The waitress didn’t give them any silverware.

Silverware had to be reserved.

“What, I don’t get to actually order anything?” She inquired with a raised brow. “You sure know how to make a girl feel special, Sans.”

“Trust me, you’re better off with the salad. Unless your idea of a good steak is half a pound of kids glue and rhinestones.”

“You're joking.”  
"Wish i was but I'm not."

She wrinkled her nose. “Breadsticks it is then.”

Sans drummed his fingers against the table, an expectant look on his face. “So, here we are.” She watched him cycle between dabbing at his forehead with a napkin and combing his dome with a come. If there had been chairs to sit on she probably would have slid out of hers and taken cover under the table to avoid the pressure of the uncomfortable silence. The awkwardness was so suffocating it was nearly drowning out the music.

He still hadn’t said anything by the time their freebies arrived. She gave him a look that dared him to say something when she wrapped up several breadsticks in napkins and stuffed them in her pockets. When she ran out of room in her pockets she started stuffing them in her borrowed shirt.

Hey, monsters kept jumping out at her like Pokémon in the tall grass- food was valuable!

“So are you just going to stand there and watch me shove bread down my shirt or are you going to say what you brought me here to say?”

Sans rocked back on his heels, thinking. “Was kinda waiting for you to kick things off. Figured you probably had some choice words for me that you needed to get off your chest.” He winked at her. “S’ok. Takes a lot to get under my skin, so let ’er rip.”

She glared at his bad pun and shoved more bread in her hoodie pockets. “No.”

He blinked in confusion. “No?”

“Sans, you have no idea how much time I have spent yelling at you. I already said everything I needed to get off my chest a long time ago. I have already told you all the sob stories and thrown my temper tantrums. I cried until my head hurt and screamed until my throat was raw. And you know what? I never found the words needed to spur you to action. You knew that in the end it wouldn’t matter if you did something because I’d reset and it would get erased. The fact that I remember all the things i said and you don’t only proves that you were right.

“I have already settled things with Alphys. I don’t know if she will get to remember that I did, but I will. Just like I remember what I said to you in the timelines where I made you listen. That’s all that matters. Because that’s all I’m going to get. You know what you did- and I know that no matter how much I yell at you for it you will just shrug it off like you always do. So please I just- I’d really rather not talk about this. Not again.” She buried her face in her hands to hide her exhaustion.  “There’s no point to it anymore.”

“Heh.” He closed his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he was deflating or relaxing after her confession. “So you gave up on me. Wow. I didn’t think you gave up on  _anything_.”

“Guess it kind of worked out for me in the end though, right? I managed to get a lot farther this time around by letting you wander off and do your own thing. I even made some friends along the way this time.” She swirled her ice water as she tried to make herself smile, then let it slip away. “It’s been nice, you know. Having friends. I missed that. I’m  _going_  to miss it.”

Sans’s smile fell away as well and he reached out to touch her hand. “Kid, Rain… I’m sorry about the lab. I should have told you. I know the Underground has been hard on you.”

She nodded. “Yeah. You should have told me. And it  _has_  been hard.” She slid her hand out from under his and drummed her fingers against the table, giving him a cheerful look. “But I’m almost done now. One way or the other this is all going to end soon, isn’t it?”

“So you have a plan?”

She downed half her water like it was a shot. “More like a jumble of half-baked ideas but I guess so. I will have to get going soon. So, again, what did you come here to say? Or is this just a pity dinner you set up to help yourself feel better?”

Sans watched the monsters a few tables over from them get up to go. He held up a finger. “Hold that thought. Let’s grab some chairs.”

She couldn’t help but sprout a grim smirk as Sans shuffled over to go barter for some chairs, trying to stall one last time while she took full advantage of her free food.

Her phone rang. She had to shuffle through several stashes of breadsticks to recover it. “Hello?”

The voices came over a little fuzzy thanks to the damage left over from her fight with Mettaton but she could still hear the voice on the other end. “Hey. Just thought you would like to know that Alphys got home safely.” Undyne sounded worn out but relieved. “She’s doing better now. I’m helping her move everyone out of the lab; sending notices to the families and all that stuff. I think she’s going to be ok.”

“Good. Good. That’s…good. None of those, um, things? None of them have caused any trouble have they?”

“Nah. Most of these guys are actually pretty nice. Once you get past the way they look anyway. They were pretty pissed off about being cooped up and hidden for so long but they are coming out of it now. Hell, some of these guys used to serve under me in the Guard! It’s nice to have em all back again!”

“What about Memoryhead?”

“What?”

“Those creepy blobby things with all the skull faces.”

“Haven’t seen em. These guys can slip into tons of cracks and cubbyholes though so it will take a while for everyone to turn up. I even had to wrestle one of them out of a bathroom drain- it was awesome!”

Rain winced, the speaker cracking against Undyne’s shouts.

“So anyway, once we get all of these guys back home we can- hey, wait a second. Do I hear fancy clinking?”

Rain shifted her phone around in a balancing act while she nibbled on her food. “Probably?”

She could practically feel Undyne’s eyes narrowing. “And is that  _jazz_  music? Fancy conversation noises? Oh my god! Rain! Are you in a fancy restaurant?”

She had to hold the phone out at arm’s length, ears ringing. “Ow. Yes.”

“What the hell are you doing there? Is my spaghetti not good enough for you now? Is that it?”

Rain pitched the bridge of her nose. “Undyne, you know how I feel about your spaghetti.”

Sans had returned and was giving her an amused if not somewhat understanding look. He had a chair tucked under each arm.

“Ohhh. Riiight. You don’t think you can  _handle_  my cooking. In that case,” something wet thwapped against the speaker, “eat up punk! What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You just got to build an immunity to it!”

Rain stared at her phone with cold, dead eyes. “Undyne just threw spaghetti at the phone.”

“She does that. Should have seen the mess she makes when she uses our kitchen. The stains are nearly impastable to get out of the carpet.” Sans slid a chair over to her. “Here.”

She rolled her eyes and tried not to laugh. If she cracked a smile she’d never hear the end of it. “Thanks.”

Undyne was still listening in on the other end. “Wait. Is that Sans? Is  _Sans_  with you? Are you having dinner with  _Sans_?”

“Yes I am, so I should probably let you go.”

She heard something break on the other end of the line. She heard  _several_ things break. It sounded like several  _rooms_ worth of things were breaking and chairs were falling over. Maybe a table, too. Undyne was screaming. “Alphys! Alphys! Come quick! Your ship is setting sail! It’s leaving the harbor!  _Sanstorm_  is firing the main canon! It’s finally ha-”

Static. Undyne had grabbed the phone too hard.

Rain set her phone aside like it might catch fire. “Ok then.”

“Wonder what that was all about.”

 “Who knows anymore?”

Sans chuckled. “Well, I have learned that when it comes to Undyne you have to roll with the tides. It’s easier that way.” He watched her through half lidded, mischievous eyes. “Although, oddly enough, the house has been pretty quiet the past few days. Undyne stopped by to show Pap her newest secret recipe. Called it a soufflé. Someone seems to have gotten it in her head that noise makes em deflate.”

Rain nearly choked on her drink. She had forgotten about that. She didn’t actually know how to make a soufflé but she had had a splitting headache and Undyne had been really loud the last time they had cooked together so she had claimed she could make one. When it failed she told Undyne it had deflated because she had been too loud.

Sans gave her a sly look. “Now judging by that look on your face, I’d say I’m getting pretty close to the lie’s source. But since you have given me several days of peace and quiet, I won’t pry.” He gave her a reassuring wink and they both had a good laugh, a little of the previous hostility melting away.

“Oh, that sort of reminds me. Here.” He fished a letter out of his pocket and slid it over to her. It was from Papyrus.

It was fan mail.

“He really loved your, uh,  _performance_  with Mettaton. He’s been watching the reruns over and over again all weekend. It’s kind of maddening.”

She stuffed the letter into one of her cleaner pockets so she could go over it later.

“I gotta admit, you had me worried there for a while.” He gave her a somewhat apologetic look. “I didn’t even know what was going on until you had already left the Core. Tried to cut you off in the Hall but I guess you had other plans. Couldn’t pin you down after that.”

“Good. I wasn’t in the mood for company.”

“I watched the reruns, you know.”

“And?” She shrank in on herself, guilty.

“And you have a better heart than I do. Mettaton didn’t go easy on you and it  looked like you were really going to do it when the lights went out.”

“Hah.”

“Don’t know what made you change your mind but I appreciate it.” Sans picked at his salad with a fork etched in Mettaton’s image but didn’t eat anything.

When had he gotten a fork?

 _Where_  had he gotten a fork? 

 “So, you really want to go to the castle now, huh?” He propped his chin up on one hand, both elbows on the table. He sounded reluctant to bring up the subject they had been dancing around. He seemed a little disappointed too but his smile was different from the one she knew. He was at ease.

She wondered why.

“I can’t keep wandering around down here like this, Sans.” She said softly. “I wish I could. I wish I could keep all of this. But I need to try and get out of here. Even if it means risking a reset if I fail.”

He shot upright, the hints of a frown pressed against his brow. The pricks of light that served as his eyes sharpened into something bright and scolding. “Do you though? I mean, why not stay? The king won’t come after you as long as you stay down here in the lower levels. Trust me, he’d be more than happy to hide in his castle and not come out if it meant not having to face you.”

“Sans, I can’t.” She shook her head and tried to hide behind her glass of water.

“You don’t know that. You have kept Chara at bay so far, who’s to say you can’t keep going?”

She frowned. “What’s this about, Sans? Why the sudden change of heart? Why are you bothering to care  _now_?”

He pressed on, ignoring her as his words began to tumble out faster and faster. “You could come stay with us in Snowdin if you wanted. Paps would love that. It would be nice and quiet there. Nothing to set you off. Or, I dunno, if you’re sick of seeing me you could probably bunk with Undyne for a while.” He chuckled to himself. “At least until she burns her house down.  _Then_  you can come stay with us.”

She took a deep breath. “You have no idea how tempting that sounds.”

“Course I do.” He mumbled, suddenly taking a great interest in the salad he wasn’t going to eat. “You just want to be done with this. You want to get out. You want to go home. I get it. Trust me, I know the feeling. But maybe… maybe sometimes it’s better to just take what’s given to you, ya know?”

“Sans…”

“Look, all I’m saying is that despite all the bumps in the road, this timeline had been pretty ok. Down here you’ve already got food, drink, friends… that’s more that a lot of people have. It’s more than you started with. So is what you think you have to do really worth it? Worth letting this all go?”

Her fingers curled around the Mettaton-esque table cloth as it finally started to sink in. She was leaving. She was really leaving. One way or the other, this was about to end.

“I’m going to do my best to protect you, Sans. I’ll do my best to protect everyone. I’m doing this because I care about you guys.” She gave him a wry look. “Even if some of you can be assholes.” She set her drink aside and sighed, lips pressed into a sad line and her eyes looking off at nothing. “It doesn’t matter how well I’m doing right now. So long as Chara maintains this much control of my body I won’t always be able to veto her. As long as she has access to resets and as long as she is trapped down here, she won’t stop. I can’t stay down here and tempt fate for my own selfish reasons. One way or another, I have to find a way to pry her away from her abilitys. Some sacrifices are going to have to be made in order for that to happen. It may not work but I have to try.”

Sans leaned back in his chair and sighed. He looked like someone who had been forced to let something go and was now watching it drift away. “Ah, forget it. Didn’t think it would work but I had to try anyway. It’s been nice, Rain. Really. I’m rootin’ for ya.”

“Thanks. After all the times you have been pit against me, that means a lot.”

There was another awkward bout of silence where Sans fidgeted around with his comb. Rain took the opportunity to steal his fork from him but by the time she did she no longer felt like eating. Her choice gnawed at her. She was scared. 

Chara listened in on her internal thought process, leering at her choices. She had been unusually quiet so far.

Sans cleared his throat. “Welp, since you really do have your heart set of leaving, I guess I should show you something.” He reached into his pocket. For a second she thought he was about to proudly show her a dirty napkin but a quick second glance told her it was a muddy slip of paper. It was crumpled and had a dozen different fold lines on it. There were several messy notes left in its corners, each message coming into view one by one as he continued to unfold it. He gave the paper one last look, his smile turning soft. It was enough to make Rain jolt in place when she realized what had seemed so off about Sans this whole time. He had been smiling.  _Really_ smiling. Not only that but his expression had been changing. 

He slid the paper over to her and she snatched it up, desperate to know what could have possibly made him happy. What could this paper have that could make Sans care again?

She frowned. “It’s blank?”

“Trust me,” He laughed, “It’s not. I have checked it a hundred times over to make sure. See that line down near the right edge?”

 “Yeah.”

“That’s you.”

“Really? I didn’t realize I was such a two dimensional character.” She sniffed.

Sans didn’t laugh. “I don’t know if you ever found it but I have a workshop back in Snowdin. I keep everything I managed to salvage from my original timeline in there. Most of it isn’t worth much more than the scraps I used to make it by now but some of the scanners still work. Specifically the ones used to plot a course and navigate the timelines.

“For years I have been tracking the anomaly with it. I could use my scanner to monitor the timelines and ever since we first discovered the damn thing, I have had to watch it destroy timeline, after timeline, after timeline.” He tapped his finger against the table in representation of each lost reality. “Snapping them off like dry twinges until eventually everything ends. Until there was nothing left.” He gestured at the nearly blank page. “An eternal, all consuming darkness represented by a blank page. No more ink. The scanners couldn’t find anything left to print.”

It began to sink in for her then. Her hand trembled. She held the paper with greater care now, like it was made of cracked glass. Yet she wanted to grip it as hard as she could and hold it close to her chest to make sure it was real. All the cracks, the growing darkness, the weakening walls of the void- that’s what Sans had been watching. He had seen it coming. He had seen the end. But now there was a chance that something could survive.

“I, uh, I don’t need to tell you what looking at something like that every day does to your morale.” He cringed at his past self. “Sorry.” He lingered on that word for a moment like he wanted to say more but knew there was little point to it. Eventually he brightened again. “But when I went back home to make sure Flowey wasn’t messing with my bro, I found this. A single, long-lasting timeline. I sent all the scanners after it and it seems to go on for quite a while. I think it even starts to branch out again once we get far enough away from where we are now. There could be new timelines and new possibilities out there.”

She stared down at the paper with reverence, trying to fathom what she was being told. Here she was, at the end of her journey. One last hurrah before she gave up and now she was being told that there was a chance to actually fix this. There was a reason to try beyond doing so out of habit. This world could live on.

“You see it now, don’t you? Whatever it is you have decided to do or will decide to do, it’s going to work. I can’t guarantee the outcome will be what you want it to be. I can’t promise you things will end well or that you are gonna get your happy ending - the scanners can’t tell me that kind of thing- but I can tell you that this world, or one like it, is going to survive. You’re gonna make it”

Rain rocked back in her chair. She felt dizzy. Dizzy, excited and queasy. She was scared, disbelieving and giddy all at the same time. She felt more emotions in that moment than she had in all her years combined down here in the Underground. She would have cried but she was too shell-shocked to do even that.

A smile started to grow. She found herself grinning like an idiot while she tried to find the right words to express whatever it was she was feeling. It was going to be over. It was finally going to be over.

Sans shared in her garbled joy. He had hoped he could convince her to stay. He had hoped that would be the thing that would keep the timeline from ending. But he knew it had been a long shot. So now he would have to support whatever call she decided to make and hope the cost wouldn’t be too high. He  hoped most of them would be around to appreciate whatever choice she was going to make in the end.

“Oh. I uh, I almost forgot.” He pulled yet another device out of hiding, this time pulling it out of his ribcage. He looked down at it with a special fondness, turning it this way and that before leaning over the table and handing it to her. “Here.” It was a small black telescope. “Figured you will have more use for it than I will. You know, since you are getting out of this mess.” He didn’t quite manage to slip that edge of jealousy past her.

She turned the telescope this way and that, taking it all in. It was the same one that had given her the red ring around her eye back in Waterfall but it was clean now. It was covered in scratches from years of constant use and etched against its side were the words:  _Small. Blue. 2 nd to right: Gilbert._

“Like I said, I don’t actually know what’s about to happen. I don’t know who is going to make it past limbo and survive in this last remaining timeline but I know you are pretty hard to kill. So when you make it back to the surface and you spend your first night in the Overworld, try and enjoy the stars for me?” He drew back in on himself a bit. “There are a lot of good monsters down here that will never get to see em.”

Rain was quiet for a moment. His thoughts weighing in heavy upon her. She was thinking. Working herself up to the conclusion. In that moment she knew exactly what she wanted. She knew what choice she wanted to make. She spoke slowly. “Whatever choice I choose, it’s guaranteed to be the right one? It will be the one that saves the timeline?”

“Maybe. We won’t know for sure till you try. I f you have a bunch of half-baked plans like you said you did then maybe you will have to cycle through all of them before finding the full-baked one that works. There could still be a bunch of trial and error involved.”

Rain took a deep breath. He could be right but that didn’t stop her. Like someone pressing the last piece of a puzzle into place, Rain made her choice. Her chest felt light but she was happy.

She gave the telescope back to Sans.

He looked down at it, watching it roll towards him but refusing to pick it up. His smile shrank in confusion. He looked up at her, questioning.

She was surprised with how even her voice sounded when she spoke. “Keep it. I think if things go according to plan, you are going to get a lot more use out of it than I will.”

His eyes widened. “What?”

 _“You can’t be serious!”_ Chara proclaimed.

“We have gotten too used to thinking a certain way, Sans. We got so used to a certain pattern because of these resets. I know Asgore can’t hold the souls long enough to pull me and Chara apart but Alphys, brilliant, observant Alphys, she realized something we forgot to remember.” She took a deep breath and braced her hands against the table. “I didn’t kill anyone this time. The Underground doesn’t have one boss monster. It has _two_.”

He gave her a wary look. “I’m…not sure I follow. Are you saying you want to go after Tori?”

She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. “No. No that’s not it at all. Sans, she’s their  _mother_. She cared for every child that has fallen down here. She was always against the idea of war. The souls may not listen to Asgore but I think they may still listen to  _her_.

“The souls tried to separate me from Chara once before but in my body Chara still had the advantage. She reset before they could pull us apart. But if Toriel absorbed the souls and had more Determination than I do-”

Sans caught on then. He leaned forward, eyes downcast and shaded by one hand. “Then Chara couldn’t escape into an old save. And with six souls, Tori would probably have enough power to separate your soul from Chara’s; severing her source of power and giving us the seven souls needed to break the barrier.”

 _“It won’t work! It won’t work you idiot! I won’t allow it!”_ Chara snarled, trying to turn their hands into fists.

Rain winced but pressed on. Chara had been like this ever since Alphys had told them about all this. “There wouldn’t be a war if she did it.” She stated gently. “The queen would want peace.”

“Heh. It’s a good plan. ‘Cept I don’t think you could convince her to do it. Not Tori. Not after what she’s been through.”

“I’d like to try anyway. If you’ll let me. You know where she’s staying, right?”

He drummed his free hand on the table. He began to take sudden interest in a wall full of fliers so he wouldn’t have to look at her. “Yeah. I do.”

“Will you show me?”

His eyes darted back to her, abandoning the uninteresting billboard and fixating on her with a scrutinizing look. “You realize that once you lose control of the timeline you will die, right? You won’t be able to go back to your body. Even if you convince Tori to break the barrier and pull her own daughter off of you, she won’t hold the souls forever. That’s not who she is. And we have no way of knowing what state your soul will be in if we pull Chara out of you. Chances are there will be no going back.”

“I know.” Damn. Now her eyes were watering. Maybe there was  too much garlic on the breadsticks. “It’s going to hurt but I’m ready.” She looked up and wiped at the corners of her eyes. “You know I have been ready for a long time. I just want to get some rest. I want to keep you guys safe. I told you I would do everything I could to protect you and I meant it. So please, at least think it over?”

Sans looked back down at the small telescope. He ran his thumbs over the words scratched into its side. He didn’t want to think about it for too long. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. He didn’t want to shoulder the guilt waiting to spring up on him for having such a selfish kind of hope in the first place. Could it really be that easy? Would he really get to see the stars? After a thousand years of monsters living and dying underground could he and his brother get to see their first storm before the weekend was out? Was it wrong of him to want that?

“Alright. I’ll give you her address. If you are sure this is the way you want to go.” He pocketed the telescope before he could linger on the possibilities for too long. “I can’t promise she will see eye to eye with you but I guess it’s worth a shot.”

“Thank you.” She blew her hair out of her face and picked at the salad. Poor salad. It was getting picked on a lot tonight. She tried to break the tension with an overly cheery voice. “Well, that was a rather draining conversation!”

Sans seemed grateful for the sudden change of pace. “I’ll say. You look beat. When did you last get any sleep anyway?”

She shrugged. “Hell if I know. Chara likes to pop up while I’m sleeping so I have been too afraid to close my eyes for very long.”

Sans flipped a thumb up at the ceiling. “I got a suite upstairs you can use if you want it. Can keep an eye on ya too if you’d like. For old time’s sake.”

She cocked a brow. “You already rented a room before I said yes to dinner?”

His smile fell off of him like cheap paint. His cheekbones started to gain a distinct red hue. “No. No, uh, I think we lost something in translation here. I always have the room on reserve.”

She shook her head and laughed, getting up from her seat. “Relax I’m only teasing you. I appreciate the offer but I hope you intend to say awake this time if you are keep an eye on me.”

“I promise to put some effort into it this time. Double my usual. Sixty percent.”

“Truly amazing.” She droned, brushing the bread crumbs off her shirt. “But unfortunately it’s the best offer I got. So, should we go?”

 He took a single breadstick off the table and casually added it to his own secret stash. He gave her a look that said: “what? You are twice as bad. Don’t judge me” then kicked away from the table and motioned for her to follow.

They soon left the soft music of the fancy restaurant behind, along with its soft blue lighting and a rather confused looking aquatic monster who saw them and began to furiously look over his list of reservations when he realized he had never seen them go in. “Sans!” He burbled at their backs, tentacles waving several rosters up in the air in exasperation. “Mettaton will hear of this!”

They walked a little faster, dripping that special kind of knock-off brand innocence that one wears when you already know you have been caught but try to act like you don’t know what’s going on.

One quick elevator ride to the second floor and Sans was pulling out a hidden set of keys. The amount of things he seemed to smuggle around inside of himself was beginning to rival her mother’s purse.

Her expression fell a little at that thought. She wouldn’t be seeing her mother again, would she? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Not sad but… complicated.

“Well, here we are.” Sans nudged open the door and stepped aside with a sweeping gesture. “A little too rectangular for my taste but if I ever need to sneak in a few Zs without Papyrus catching on I usually crash here.”

Rain stepped inside. To her relief this room did not have nearly as garish a color scheme as some of the other rooms she had seen in the resort. This one mostly sported dark shades of blue, like the night sky. The bed was massive. If it had been a water bed she could have called it a swimming pool.

There were obscene amounts of Mettaton-shaped items in the room. Paintings, furniture, lamps that didn’t even have lightbulbs in them for some reason and- were those gallon bottles of Mettaton shaped perfume? Why? Why would anyone want this?

At least everything looked comfortable. Even the carpet felt softer than the bed she had gotten used to sleeping in. “Let me get this straight:” She said as she approached a silver platter of junk food and condiments, “you have a suite on perpetual reserve in a resort but you can’t pay your bar tab back home?”

He shrugged. “Comes with the terf. I’m a regular attraction at the resort. Standup comic. Although sometimes I think Mettaton only gave me the gig ‘cause he thought I would blab about him being a ghost if he didn’t.”

“You know Mettaton?”

“Sort of. Would be more accurate to say Mettaton knows me. People like him seem to know everyone. One could even say-”

“Don’t-“

“That he’s Met-a-ton.” And there were the finger guns. He was doing finger guns. Godammit.  “But yeah. He’s an ok guy once you get to know ‘im. He used to let me get free meals along with the gig but he said I was eating more than I was worth after the first couple weeks.”

Rain tried to hide her smirk as she kicked her shoes off and went to the nearby desk to unload her trove of bread. She paused in front of the mirror to undo her hair. Her eyes lingered on her many, many scars. Then she noticed the returning red color at the base of her scalp and reached up to touch it. “Hey, my natural hair color is coming back. See? I got red roots again! I guess Alphys was right about me getting it back once I gained more control over my body.”

“Glad we were able to find the root of the problem.”

“…I guess that one was ok.” She straightened and gave him a frown when she noticed him giving her an oddly fond look. “What? What is it?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. It’s just, despite everything, it’s still you.”

His words threw her off guard a bit. She wondered if that was true. He didn’t give her long to get hung up on it though.

“What are you waiting for? Bed ‘s all yours.”

“You sure?”

“Didn’t bring you all this way to tell you to take the floor.”

She grunted something close to a thank you and finished shedding her pilfer of breadsticks and more or less belly flopped into the center of the bed and rolled herself into a burrito.

Sans set his stolen breadstick down on the silver tray and wrote down Toriel’s new address on a scrap of paper by the desk. Then he picked up the nearby chair and set it down near the edge of the bed. He swung his feet up onto the end of the mattress and tucked his hands back behind his skull, elbows sticking out and the chair balancing precariously on its back legs. “Sleep tight.”

She rolled over and gave him a scrutinizing look. He had his eyes closed. “Sans, you’re not going to fall asleep, are you?”

“Nah. I’m just winking at you with both eyes.”

Her eyes were drooping shut despite her not wanting them too. She was full on breadsticks and was warm and comfy now. “Sans, this is serious. You have to watch me.”

“So serious it requires a double wink. Don’t worry, I got your back.”

They bantered the point back and forth for a while. She didn’t even notice when the argument carried over into her dreams.

***

Sans did keep his promise. For a while at least. He kept an eye on her to make sure she could rest without having to worry about waking up to a dust bath. But Rain wasn’t the only one who was weary. She wasn’t the only one the timelines had run ragged. And now that he knew they were going to make it, all that tension had snapped and left him winded.

A few hours into his watch his eyes drifted shut for real and he started to dream. He had dreams of long lost faces whispering that he had done a good job. He had dreams about a human who begged for help while he ignored her. He had dreams  about things that had and had not happened and about things that finally  _could_  happen. For once it brought him peace.

Rain awoke some hours later, still tired and yearning for another three hours or rest if she could get it.

Chara remained asleep.

She glanced at the nearest clock, which was a rectangle with hands somehow shaped like mini Mettaton’s and instead of numbers it only said “it’s time to shine!” around the edges.

She guessed it was probably late in the morning. Maybe ten AM.

She could hear the soft whooshing sigh of Sans’s snoring. A frown began to grow on her face as she rolled over, already scheming over how best to wake him up. “Dammit Sans you said you wouldn’t fall asleep.” She sighed. But when she looked at him her annoyance softened a little.

One hand on his chest, the other dangling over the edge of his chair, he sat with a book in his lap and his chin tucked up against his collarbone. He looked peaceful and very, very tired.  

She sat up and nudged at his slippers with her toe. “Sans? Hey. You gonna wake up?”

He buried his face a little deeper into his coat.

It occurred to her then that she was not the only one who had been caused sleepless nights by Chara. They had run Sans ragged. So ragged that he had died in the Judgment Hall because he simply couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore. Every night that she had been given a few hours of sleep down in the lab, it had been because he had stayed awake to watch out for her. Every time she had woken up with nightmares he had already been up. 

Sans was tired too.

She slipped out of bed as quietly as she could and flipped back the covers. She gave Sans a little nudge on the shoulder. “Hey. Beds open if you want it. Sans? Are you really still asleep or just messing with me? Come on, I don’t like how far back your leaning in that chair. You only have like, one HP.”

Dammit. Sleeping this hard was what had gotten him killed in the first place. She stood there for a while, awkward and fidgeting for a moment. She reached out to give him another good shake but stopped herself.

Let him sleep.

For once, let him sleep.

She slid an arm under his legs and behind his back, holding her breath and hoping she wouldn’t wake him. If she startled him again and got stabbed for this it would be really awkward. She hesitated when she picked him up. He was so light. She swore she had picked up cats that weighed more than him. He was so small too. Nothing but bones. She had fought him so often that she had come to think of him as the strongest monster in the Underground, a near unbeatable wall of power. But Sans was none of those things. He was small and weak and tired. Just like her.

She set him down gently in the bed and pulled the covered up over him, slippers and all.

She went over to the desk and took the scrap of paper with Toriel’s address on it and wrote down a quick note telling him where she would be and put it on his chair. She lingered there for a moment before reaching out and gently touching the crack running across the side of his skull. She wondered if it would ever heal.

Someday when she was long gone, would any of the monsters heal? Would they get better as the timeline grew stronger? Or would they be marked like this forever? Would warm, kind Toriel always have a mark under her eye like a tear that wouldn’t dry? Would Papyrus always feel that twinge at the base of his neck when he was nervous? Had she permanently weakened the Underground’s heroine because she had been too afraid to make her own choices? Would weary, bone-tired Sans always have to be reminded of her and all the things she had taken from him whenever he looked in the mirror?

“I am so, so sorry, Sans. “ She whispered. “I mean it. I’m sorry I wore you down like this. But today you can rest. Today you won’t have to worry. Sleep in, ok?” She crept away and retrieved her shoes and fancy bread sticks before she eased the door open. She looked over her shoulder and tried to smile. “Don’t worry. I can look after Chara for a while longer. After all the sleep I have taken from you, I think it’s time I give a few hours back.”

She eased the door closed with a click and set out to find Toriel. It was time to stop stunting their story. It was time to let them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always loved how if you call Undyne inside the restaurant she will throw spaghetti at the phone 
> 
>  
> 
> I also made Lyrics for ["Its Raining somewhere else"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12141930) when i wrote this chapter.


	52. Forgiven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgiven
> 
> ~*~*~*~*
> 
> Here we are again....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Ooo look i got new messages on my last chapter!" *Goes to check all the notes on the previous chapter*  
> *Every single note says "I ship it"*  
> ....Hahaha ok! xD I can't believe that all happened at once.

 

It did not take long to find Toriel. She was actually inside the resort, holed up in one of the less gaudy apartments a few floors up. One wouldn't call the area cramped but it was a bit snug. The top floors of the building had been drilled into the mountain itself so some of the walls were exposed parts of the cavern’s side; their cool, crystal-flecked surface having long since been polished smooth by years of visitors.

Rain had stalled her meeting with a breakfast of breadsticks and instantly regretted her lack of self-control. Now she felt sluggish and she still had no idea what she was going to say to the queen when she met her.

_“She’s not worth talking to.”_

“She is.”

 _“Oh then she will_ love _this! You are a fool if you think you can save them. But mother will be_ so _happy to know she has found another fallen angle to sacrifice to the cause!”_

“You know that’s not what they had planned for you. It was never like that.”

Chara groaned in frustration and bitterly snapped at her. “ _Even if Sans was telling the truth about their ridiculous plans to use time travel of all things, it doesn’t change what they are doing now. Sure, the monsters will love you for sacrificing yourself to their cause but you are an idiot to think they are worth it.”_

“That seems to be our lot in life isn’t it? Manipulation.” Rain sniffed, words dripping with venomous sarcasm. “You’re only mad that it’s not you making the calls this time.” She knocked on the door. “I recall you wanting to fulfill the prophecy at some point too, you know. You believed it talked about an angel of death, remember? Well, prophecies can be interpreted many ways and I like the more benevolent version myself. That’s how  _I_  choose to read it.”

She heard the lock click and Toriel swung the door open; her soft violet eyes widening. “Chara?” She gasped.

Rain took a step back, feeling an instant wave of regret. “Um, no. Sorry.”

There was a flash of sadness in her eyes but she recovered quickly and composed herself. “Ah yes, of course. My apologies. Your name is Rain, is it not?”

“Yes. Sorry to bother you,” She shuffled in place, “I know I’m probably not someone you want to talk to right now but I need your help”

Toriel leaned her head against the door a little. “Hm. I admit I would have been overjoyed if you were indeed Chara, but after our last encounter I cannot say I am surprised that she is not the one who chose to come here.” Toriel stepped aside and gestured for her to come in. “Nevertheless, I did not leave the Ruins simply to hide in the shadows on the outskirts of my own city while you pass me by. So please, come in. I have a pie in the oven that you are welcome to share with me if you plan on staying for long. I just finished boiling a pot to tea as well if you are interested.”

“We’ll see. Not sure how long this is going to take.” She stepped inside and took a quick look around. There were a few books scattered about the area and some fresh cut flowers but other than that everything looked pretty standard. It was the mark of a space that was being visited and not lived in. “So why did you move out here anyway? Why not stay in Snowdin? Or go back to your home in the Ruins?”

Toriel let Rain take her choice of seating before picking a spot directly across from her on the couch. She had a half finished cup of tea on the coffee table that she began to sip at. The furniture and the delicate little teacups looked like they belonged in a dollhouse with the boss monster there using them.

 “Oh I quite liked staying with Sans and Papyrus. But their couch is rather small for someone like me and, well, after what happened in the lab I needed some time to think.” She looked off to the side, thoughtful and a little shy. “I imagine I would have worried them both if I had stayed; what with the state I was in when I left.”

Rain cringed. “I’m really sorry about that. I tried to keep her from lashing out but-”

Toriel fixated on her with a scowl that cut her off. She held up one massive furry paw. “Come now, stop that. There is no need for you to apologize for the actions of someone other than yourself. I have had to deal with plenty of angry children in my time. If anything I should be the one feeling ashamed. I had hoped that I had taught my daughter to be better than this. She never would have gotten away with such crass behavior in the past.” She sighed, a gust of wind trapped in a cave. Her motherly scowl melted into regret. “But I suppose she can’t help it now, can she? You poor souls… I saw such turmoil inside of you.” She shook herself from that train of thought and made a show of smoothing out her robes to divert attention away from her watery eyes. “My apologies. I am sure that by now you are bored of pity.

“That is why I chose to come to the resort if I am to be completely honest. I knew you would both need some space after that horrible ordeal but I wanted to still be close by incase you needed me. Or in case you tried to go see Asgore.” Her voice dropped to a dangerously low pitch. “Or in case he tried to find you. I am actually rather surprised that nothing happened after your um… little stunt? With that robot? I went looking for you afterwards but you must have taken a path I did not see.” Her teacup trembled against its saucer. “For a horrible moment, I believed Asgore had found you first.”

Rain took a deep breath and splayed her hands out in her lap. “That’s what I came here to talk to you about, actually. You and Asgore.”

She grimaced a bit, her large front fangs showing as she brushed her ears back over her shoulders and set down her teacup. “I suppose I should have known this could not be a leisurely visit.”

“Look, um, Toriel, I really don’t know how to say this in a non-offensive way so I’m just going to be blunt. I need your help separating Chara from my body.”

She froze in place. “You wish for me to cast out my own child? To what end? I thought Alphys was still trying to help her- you. Both of you.”

Rain hesitated, her voice going a little soft in the light of Toriel's parent-like questioning. “None of her plans held any water. Besides, you have seen what she is like now. She’s not happy. She’s suffering in her own cold, empty sort of way.”

 _“I suffer my choices gladly. It is your choices that are the issue.”_ She snarled back.

 “We have all tried to help her but the truth is she doesn’t want our help.” She braced herself. “Toriel, she’s not your child. Not anymore. I’m sure you loved her once long ago but all that is left of her now is this ugly, bitter memory.” She clutched at her chest. “All thats left is this cold, painful thing that hates the void that makes up its own existence. That’s no way for her to live. This is no way for  _me_  to live. I am stuck like this. We are both stuck and it  _hurts_.”

 _“The pain would be long gone by now if you were not so stubborn!”_ Their hand shook, hot tea nipping at their fingers as Rain tried to keep their hands from becoming a fist. After a moments struggle she managed to fight Chara back down.

Toriel balked at her words, a hand going up to her chest as her mouth fell open and she fumbled for words. “and- and what would you have me do? Can she me moved to another body? I will gladly host her if it is at all possible. But you are making it sound like you want me to simply pull her free and let her…  _die_. Again! After I have lost her once already! Becides, I do not think you even understand what you are asking of me. I may be a powerful monster but even I do not have the ability to pull an unwilling soul from its living body.”

“If you had the other six souls you might.”

Toriel practically bristled, hackles standing on end and eyes going wide, burning with a violet fire that glistened with pain. For once Rain understood why people called her a boss monster.

Her voice shook. “You… you wish for me to take the souls of the fallen children? Just so I can kill another? Why?” She flung an arm wide, off in the distant direction of the forgotten Ruins. “I gave up my crown because I could not live with the horrible creature that had taken the place of my husband! I left my old life in ruins so I could go and bury at least  _one_  of my children as far away from Asgore’s evil as I possibly could. And now you wish for me to go back and take the very souls he stole from me? How would I be any better than the man I despise if I did that!”

_“Look at her. She is weak. Weak and sad. I could never even catch her soul. How would someone like that ever be able to hold all the souls on her own? Go ahead and try. It would be funny to watch her melt.”_

“I know it’s a lot to ask. But Toriel, they are already dead. All these souls, the ones that are trapped, the one inside me that is lost, they should have been able to move on a long time ago-”

“I am well aware that they are dead!” Her voice cracked. “I tried so hard to protect them.” She ran her fingers through her fur and covered half her face with a trembling hand. “I tried to get them to understand. But again and again they left. They were never happy down there in the Ruins with me. They always wanted to find a way to leave in the end. And so one way or another they would slip away; never to return.” Tears began to collect in the corners of her eyes. Her fur began to smolder. “Do you have any idea what it’s like? Tucking in your child one night and waking up to find them gone? Trading in their bed of blankets for a bed of soil? Do you know what it’s like to have to search for them all day, only to have some creature who thinks to still call themselves a decent monster, show up at your door, all clad in armor painted with your old house symbol, and hand you a box containing your child’s bloody shoes? Their shoes, Rain! Like that is a sufficient apology for murder!” The tears ran heavy down her snout now, matting her fur. “He wouldn’t even let me collect their bodies!”

She slammed a first down on the coffee table, sparks flying off of her tufts of fur and her teacup jumping in place. “The humans stole two children from me, Rain. They took my babies from me and the whole kingdom trembled. But my husband? The man I loved? He stole _six_! And no one says a word against him for it!”

Rain got up and walked through the smoke. She did not flinch against the sparks that danced around her when she wrapped her arms around the massive, grieving mother. She paid no mind when her tears stained her shirt and Chara tried to pull away. “I know it hurts. Asgore took someone from me too. Someone I loved.” She laughed a little at the memory. “Hell, who knows. If he had never fallen into this stupid mountain we would probably have been married by now. But that’s all gone. I had to let him go. And I have had to forgive the people that hurt me when they took him.”

She pulled away a little and the smoke around them lessened. Toriel pulled a handkerchief out from the folds of her robes and blew into it; a thunderous sound. “Oh, my poor child. I did not know he had taken someone from you as well. I am so, so sorry.”

Rain shrugged helplessly. “I will get to see him again. I hope. I know that in the end, he was ok with what happened to him. And now I am too. Now I’m ready.” She picked up Toriel’s hand. She looked so frail and tiny, trying to hold such a big, clawed hand. There was a time when the fur and claws would have scared her but now she was at peace. Now she was not afraid. And although Chara still snarled inside of her and tried to goad her body into doing something drastic, Rain remained still. There was no fear or anger or sadness for her to feed on.

“The king already has six souls. What’s done is done. But he has been running from mine. He may have been angry enough to declare war on humans at one point but I think now he only knows fear .”

“I doubt he would let me do it.” She huffed. “After all these years…”

“Of course he would. I hardly know the guy and even I can tell that he wants a way out. You never should have ran from your throne.” Toriel’s mouth fell open in disbelief but Rain spoke over the top of her. “You were both angry. Both grieving. In the end I think you both did something that was not in the best interest of your people in order to deal with your loss. But I think that if you had stayed, or gone back to him sooner, you could have talked him out of it.”

Toriel sighed, deflating a bit and bowing her head. “Perhaps. That is a question I have often been afraid to ponder aloud.”

“It’s not too late. I’m not asking you to kiss and make up with the guy- god no- but I think if you went to him now as a voice of reason, he would listen. You could still prevent a war and destroy the barrier peacefully.”

Toriel gave her a disapproving look but there were the wry edges of understanding beginning to slip into her words. “Destroy the barrier using my fallen children?”

“Asgore can’t do it. The souls will fight back. But I think that if it’s you who asks for their help, they will listen. They need their mother and the Underground needs its queen.”

Toriel fell silent for a while. When she spoke again her voice was quiet and resigned. “When are you going?”

“Today. This afternoon if I can.”

Toriel took in a sharp breath. “I’m going to need some time to think. Time to…yes, time to think.”

Rain gave her hand a squeeze. “Alright. I hope I will see you there to send us off. I-I can’t give you back Chara. I wish I could but Chara has been gone for a long, long time. But I can give you back the sky. And a chance to say goodbye.”

Toriel nodded in understanding, dabbing at her eyes but remaining silent. She didn’t want to face it but she knew that sometimes a goodbye was all the world would let you have.

***

It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing. Flowers were blooming. The air was warm and golden light spilled through the cracks in the ceiling up above. On days like these friends should be having a picnic. On days like these people should be enjoying the sun.

It was on a day like this, that Rain made her final trip into the golden hall.

Chara fought her. She gnawed at her. She spat and made her bones go so cold she could barely feel the warmth in the air. Chara’s feigned belief that this plan could not work had long since faded away into panic. Her attacks hurt and Rain was still a little scared but she was at peace and so Chara had nothing to feed on. Nothing to fight with.

She stopped half way through the hall, finding it empty.

She decided to wait.

It was funny really. She had been in this hall hundreds of times, maybe thousands. Yet she had never actually stopped to look at the murals painted on the wall. One showed the monsters being cast down into the Underground. It was a depiction of sorrow-filled faces framed by the golden light that was being stolen from them.

The second one showed the monsters venturing deep into the caverns; the darkness pressing in against their fire magic. Their eyes were wide and lost in fear.

The last image was not one of history but perhaps of prophecy. The mountain had been cut open, unveiling the stone city and the castle hidden underneath on the right side of the painting. On the left side was the distant outline of a city. Monsters were filing out of the mountain and humans were wandering out of the city on the left to meet in the middle, where a human and a monster with their souls visible, embraced under the delta rune.

Maybe she would be the one to make that painting a part of history.

She heard footsteps.

She turned around slowly, recognizing the sound at once. Sans was there, stepping out from the shadow of his favorite pillar. His arms were buried up to the elbows in his pockets. The light shone against the right side of his skull and bathed the scarred half in shadow.

To her great surprise he wasn’t wearing his pink fuzzy slippers today. He was wearing a set of smart blue sneakers instead. The shoelaces were united but it was still a noticeable improvement.

She tried to act happy to see him but her stomach turned. She felt nervous all of a sudden. She didn’t actually know what to expect from here on out.

“Heya. You waited for me. ”

She braced herself with a long inhale and tried to smile in order to hide the faint tremor that ran through her. “Well if it isn’t my favorite judge, jury and executioner. Slept in this time, hm?”

“Heh. Yeah guess so. Sorry.”  He pulled up alongside her and they observed the murals in silence for a moment.

“So, how are we going to do this?”

He scratched the back of his skull. “Dunno. How do we usually start things out?”

She scuffed the ground and cringed away from the idea of their old routine. “You ask me if I think even the worst person can change. Chara says something only an asshole would say, you tell me to burn in hell. Then we do our little dance.”

“Ah.” He rocked back on his heels. “Well then I guess this time we should go for improv, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He made a bit of a show of clearing his throat. “So, Rain. Do you think even the worst person can change?”

She took half a step away from him. “You  _just_  said we were not going to do it that way.”

He continued talking. “Cause I do. They have to want it though. That’s the thing Paps never quite got. Anyone can change- but only if they want to.” He was staring at the murals with a quiet reverence, his eyes flicking over to her now and then. “You must have really wanted to in order to be here now. Sure, you had your bumps and bruises along the way. You messed up plenty of times. But you didn’t gain any LOVE. Not this time. Now,” He shot her a knowing look, “That’s not to say you were weak. Or soft. Or innocent. Doesn’t even mean you are ‘pure’- not that I would know what the hell ‘pure’ is. But you always kept a certain kindness in your heart. You could have chosen to be bitter about all the things this world has done to you but you didn’t. You chose to forgive. You chose to move on.” He closed his eyes. “So I guess that’s it then. Not much there for me to judge this time around. You didn’t gain any LOVE, but you gained love, if that makes any sense.” He shrugged. “Ah, forget it. Congrats kid. You made it.”

She blinked at him, confused. “That’s it?”

He looked from side to side. “Well, yeah. That’s all my material. Why? What were you expecting?”

She watched him carefully for a moment before turning back to the murals. “I don’t know. I guess that I was kind of expecting you to pull another fast one on my like you always do.”

“What? You mean backstab you?”

“Maybe. I tried to talk to you here before but it never ended well. And well, um, I mean, everyone else has tried to fight me down here by now. Seems to be how monsters make friends. So I sort of expected you were going to be the one to… yeah.”

Sans tried to peer through the curtain of hair hiding her eyes. “Rain, I’m only here to take you to see the king. That’s what you wanted, right? I’m on your side now. I’m not gonna hurt ya.”

She flinched away from his words. She didn’t quite move half a step away from him but the action felt as sharp and obvious as a crack of thunder for the skeleton. Several unwanted memories came to the surface for him then. Like bubbles rising out of the depths of a pond, popping against their own tension and releasing dark memories like noxious gas. Echo’s and faint images jumped in and out of focus in his mind.

_“please, if your listening… let’s just forget all of this, ok?”_

_“you’re sparing me?”_

_“c’mere pal.”_

_“just give up.”_

_“…I was telling the truth. I thought… I thought you would understand.”_

_“so rain, please, i’m begging you… don’t come back.”_

Sans winced against the faint twinge of pain running along the crack in his skull. “Heh. Look at us. We really did a number on each other, huh?”

“Yep.”

He looked away and tried to keep his voice steady. “Hah. God. It’s all starting to kinda come back to me now. Ow.”

_"on days like these, people like you…should be burning in hell!”_

_“Oh Sans! Thank you! Thank you so much!  This has all be so confusing. I was so scared. We promise we won’t ever-”_

_"wow, so you can bleed. congratulations. didn’t think you had it in you. you know, since you’re heartless.”_

She hovered over him like a worried mother hen. “Oh! Oh you are actually remembering! Are you ok? We can get out of here if you want.” She could never forget what had happened when Undyne’s scars had started to open. And with Sans’s low HP that was not something she wanted to risk happening here.

He shook his head and waved her away, squinting through the pain.

This was it. This could really be it. She was leaving. She was going to die. If he didn’t say something now, he would be out of time. “Nah. S’ok. I’m good. Really. It’s just kinda rough, ya know? Seeing all the things we did. I just… I wish I could take it all back now. I dunno if you will even believe me when I say this but I wish… I wish I had done more.” His voice cracked a little but he tried to hide it. “Paps never really got that people have to want to change in order to be better. But it took me a hell of a long time to understand that the ones who do want to change? The ones like you who want to fix things? They are gonna need help. You needed help. You  _asked_  me for help. And what did I do? I kicked you while you were down. I stabbed you in the back. I told you to give up!”

“Sans, look at me. No- look at me.” She took him by the shoulders but he kept his head bowed.

“You got a better heart than I do, kid. You were strong enough to bear it. You were Determined enough to break the cycle I gave up on. You were strong enough to keep feeling; even when I stopped.” Teardrops splattered against the polished floor, landing on the tiles between them. “I couldn’t find it in me to trust you. Even after I heard all the things you said to Paps when he first visited the lab, I still ended up running away from it all, didn’t I?”

She put a finger under his chin and gently coaxed him into looking up at her. He was crying. In all of her resets, in all of their encounters, she had never seen him cry. “You were strong, Sans. You did feel it. I know you did. I was there. You felt it.” She wiped away some of his tears with her thumb. “You always have.”

He remembered the last time they had met in the hall. He remembered her touching his face then too. Smiling at him with a knife buried in her chest. Smiling because she had figured it out even without his help. Smiling as she painted his skull red with blood and branded him a killer.

He was going to have to watch her die like that again soon.

“Kid… Rain I-I’m sorry.  _I’m so fuckin sorry_. I’m sorry for making you take the hard route. I’m sorry for trying to take all your friends away when you needed em most. I’m sorry for not being there when you needed me. I’m sorry for taunting you, mocking you,  _torturing_  you!”

“Hey, hey come on. It’s ok. It’s ok, I’m here now. We are both here, see?  We made it. And you are listening now, aren’t you?” She pulled him into a hug and held him as tight as she could, pressing in against his coat until she could feel the bones underneath as his shoulders hitched with a sob.

He hugged her back, burying his face in her shoulder.

She rested her chin against the top of his skull and tried to keep her voice light, even as her own tears began to trickle down her face. “It’s ok, Sans. It’s all going to be ok now. You won. We’ve won. We are going to be  _free_.”

His words were muffled against her shirt. “The other me’s, the other Sanses- they didn’t know. They just didn’t know. If they had then they would've been sorry too. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you. I’m sorry I didn’t think there was anything left to save. I’m sorry your story has to end like this.”

She rubbed circles into his back and dabbed at her eyes. “But I think you did know. In the end at least. The very end. I think you did believe me, even if you don’t remember it now. You held me and helped me die back then. Besides, you believe me now, don’t you? See? Progress!” She gave a shaky laugh. “Besides, it was a different world for us back then. Everything was dying or already dead. You had to make a hard choice for the both of us. By the end we both understood that in those timelines there was nothing left to save. Sending me back was the only way, Sans. Sans, forcing me to come back  _was the only way._ ”

She took a deep breath, sniffing as she pulled away just enough for him to look up at her again. She smiled through watery eyes. “I never did thank you for that. But thank you, Sans. Thank you for being so strong is such a terrible time. Papyrus saved me from myself, but you? You saved the world from me. You were strong when no one else was left that could be strong.” She pressed her forehead against his. “Thank you. I don’t hate you for what you did. I love you for it. So thank you for being strong enough to give me that second chance when I didn’t deserve one. Thank you for being there to stop me. Thank you for being here now.”

She closed her eyes.

“And…I forgive you.”

 

[ ](https://imgur.com/EWYCiug)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a few chapters left now.  
> *Casually adds another mark to the "times i made my sister cry reading this" tally.* 
> 
> ~*~*~*~*  
> Behold! the drawing I promised at the beginning of the arc! Now you know why I was worried it may spoil things a bit. Also i think it hits harder when left here. So glad i got this one done- i tried multiple times to finish this and ended up starting over on a lot of different aspects of it because it didn't look right. The coloring was a nightmare.


	53. Smile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Smile  
> ~*~*~*~*~*~  
> Its time for them to say goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ooohhhh ok here we go. sorry, so sorry. I planned to get this up sooner but wow i got really sick. ugh. Oh well. Happy Halloween!

It was nice to get all of those lingering things off of his chest. They were nearly out of time to resolve such things. It was nice to know that despite his attempts not to, he had cared to some degree. He had been rooting for her.

Yeah. It was nice.

She let him break off the hug on his own terms. She didn’t know how long he had needed it so she let him take as much time as he wanted. It gave her a chance to compose herself again anyway. When he finally pulled back and rubbed away the last remnants of tears, the room felt deathly quiet. It was somehow peaceful.

Rain straightened her loaned shirt and tried to keep her voice level.  “Well, should we get started then?”

“If you’re ready.”

“I am.”

Sans shook his head, looking up at nothing. “It feels weird, doesn’t it?”

She nodded. “Like I’m in a dream. It’s nice though. Walking down here with you. But it’s also rather sad. For many reasons” She looked out of the stain glass window. The shadows of birds flitting past crossed their view. The birds had stopped singing now. “You know, I never did realize that it really  _was_  a beautiful day outside. You always told me that it was. “

Sans took in a slow, bracing breath. “This could actually be it then, huh? This could be the one.”

“This could be the one _.”_

“Are you scared?”

“A little. But that’s normal. I feel better knowing you will be there.” She scoffed at herself. “Which is kind of funny when I think about it. You terrified me the first time I met you. Way back in Snowdin Forest, when I walked through that door for the very first time. Skeletons are basically the universal symbol of death among humans. I was cold, terrified and in a world were suddenly all the monsters of my childhood nightmares existed.” She looked back the way she had come, the long hall of polished stone untouched by battle. Somewhere at the other end of that golden hall, Snowdin was still standing. It was still filled with monsters. And the door to the Ruins lay open and unlocked. She would not see that snow again. “I was half convinced you were the Grim Reaper back then. You came up behind me and used this deep, serious voice that sent a chill down my spine. A voice you usually reserve for telling me to burn in hell.” She added with a wry sort of black humor, “You told me to shake your hand and I thought for sure I was going to die. Like, really die. I didn’t know I could reset yet.

“But instead when I shook your hand I heard this big stupid farting sound.” She laughed, brushing away stray strands of hair tinted with whispers of red. “You had tied a whoopee cushion to your hand!” She tucked her hands away into their apposing sleeves. Her face fading into something sad and wistful. “…I missed that on the later runs.”

“A whoopee cushion huh? Sounds about right. I will have to remember that.” Sans held out his hand. It was time for them to go inside. They had work that needed doing. “Well, we should get going.”

She gave his hand a suspicious look. “We really don’t have that far to walk. You’re not going to use another shortcut, are you?”

He thought for a moment then shook his head, lowing his hand as he thought better of the idea. “Nah. This time we came the long way ‘round.” They stepped through the archway together, leaving the golden hall behind. “So, did you ever figure it out? Am I the Grim Reaper or the jester?”

She smiled knowingly. “Both.”

***

Up in the rafters he could hear the sparrows speaking to one another. The ground underfoot was soft and rich, giving of a faint earthy smell as he moved from one patch of flowers to the next with his watering can in hand.

It was uncommon to hear much in the way of warning when Sans came to visit him. More often than not he would show up when your back was turned, lounging in the shade unnoticed until he decided to start giving out much appreciated snippets of advice or information while Asgore went about his gardening. Yet today his friend did not seem so inclined to take one of his shortcuts. Asgore caught the familiar sight of the skeleton’s broad frame and blue coat out of the corner of his eye as he crossed the room.

“Ah, howdy Sans!! How nice of you to come and visit. It has been a while, hasn’t it? I hope your absence has not been due to any difficulty at home.” He chuckled to himself, a sound like distant rolling thunder. He crossed his massive arms and turned to give him a knowing look. “Has Undyne been complaining about the hotdog stand ag-” His eyes widened. He took a step back, watering can falling to the ground and spilling water at his feet.

No. No,no,no! Sans stood in the hallway, flanking a weary looking human with frayed gray and red hair.

“Oh.” Asgore said quietly, bowing his head.

Sans gave Asgore an apologetic look, rubbing at the back of his cracked skull before pulling a small blue comb out of his pocket to fiddle with. “Yeah. Sorry.”

Why? Why did they always come to him in the end? One way or the other they always ended up here. Why could the humans never be happy staying in the Underground? He could think of an endless number of excuses to avoid hunting them down if they would only stay outside of the capital but once they were standing in front of him he had no choice. He had a duty to his people.

“Ah. Sans, thank you.” The king rumbled, head still bowed and ears drooping. “I know that such things must be taxing on your spirit. You already did your duty to your kingdom when you found the last one. I had hoped that you would not be the one to catch her as well.”

He dared himself to look the human in the eye. He owed her that much at least. Yet when he looked into her soft brown eyes ringed by tired bruises, he did not see fear. He did not see hate. He did not even see anger. He looked away. “Thank you, my friend. You have done more than enough. You may go now. You need not see this.”

“Actually, Rain has asked me to stay.”

Rain. Her name was Rain. He wished he had not known that. It was always harder if he knew their names. Yet he always asked.

“She uh, she has a bit of a proposition for you. Wanted me to tag along to make sure you asked questions before anyone started shooting.”

She spoke up then, her voice reinforced with the calm confidence of someone who viewed themselves as in control. “I’m not here to fight you. I’m here to talk.”

Asgore frowned. “Oh. Well, I suppose I could make such an allowance. Those who reside in the Underground will always have my ear- even if they do not wish to stay.”

The girl cast an uneasy look at the flowers. “Can we go somewhere with a little less pollen?”

Asgore scratched at his ears. This was certainly unraveling into the strangest encounter he had ever had with a fallen human. “I suppose? This way.” He gestured to a short hallway to the left that ended in a side room. “Would either of you like some tea?”

“Um, I guess so. Sure.”

Sans didn’t say a word for or against it so Asgore lead them into the side room and gestured for them to take up one of the many empty seats that awaited them. It looked like a tea lounge. Its decorations were a mismatched mix of glass cupboards full of cute themed teacups, flowers and items marked by the delta rune. A collection of chipped chairs in a disparity of sizes waited to be filled and the table was big enough to make Rain feel like she may need a phone book to sit on.

Sans may have actually needed one but he singled out a chair that had just the right height to accommodate him. He settled down like he was a regular at the table.

Asgore took his sweet time making them tea, stalling in pitiful ways so that he could keep his back turned. Finally Sans had to shake him out of it. “Come on Asgore. We won’t go away it you turn around long enough. She’s not runnin'.”

His mountainous shoulders sagged like a depiction of a landslide. “You have come to read me too well, my friend.”

“Well a book as big as you usually had a font large enough to match.” Sans teased. “Come on. She’s come a long way to talk to you.”

Asgore returned to them in defeat. He tried to keep up a welcome appearance but the angle of his shoulders and the way he tilted his head told a story of someone who felt cornered. He kept glancing at the girl, trying to appraise her battle value. He had not read anything detailing any accidents involving her and other monsters so far. Her LV was probably quite low. But she was an adult, not a child. So perhaps their battlefield would be even. Perhaps she had a fighting chance.

Perhaps she would free him of his duty.

He slid a cup over to Sans. A white porcelain thing with a chipped handle and a skull face on it. Rain was given an unassuming white teacup with pink roses and Asgore took for himself a cup that bordered on being a bowl. It was shaped like a ram, its horns making up the handle. It still looked small and brittle in the king’s hand.

Asgore took a long sip from his cup then folded his hands together out in front of him. “So then, what is it you two wish to talk about?”

Rain looked over her shoulder. “Well to be honest, I was hoping someone else would show up before we had to get started.”

Everyone looked back out into the hall in expectation but no one showed up.

“You sure she’s really gonna show?”

“Give it time. Mind if we wait?”

Asgore gave them the go ahead, content to wait a few moments in awkward silence if it meant delaying the inevitable.

His ears twitched when he heard the tap of clawed feet rushing against the polished floor. The pattern tickled a long faded memory. His eyes widened when a familiar shape came into view.

Her jaw was set and her eyes alight with violet fire; ears trailing behind her like banners in her determined march. Toriel had at long last returned to the castle.

Asgore’s eyes widened in disbelief. He launched to his feet, his belly catching on the table and sending all the teacups flying in a spray of still-hot liquid. He tried to absentmindedly catch his cup before it fell to the floor and shattered.

Rain yelped as she was drenched in hot tea.

Sans somehow dodged his cup. He didn’t get a single drop on him.  

“Toriel?” Asgore gasped, mouth hanging open. He had heard rumors that she had left the Ruins, but this? “Toriel! I… I cannot believe this. You- you came back!”

“Oh, do be quiet.” She snapped, stomping into the room and enacting the very definition of regal. “I am not here for you, Asgore. I have not forgotten nor forgiven what you have done to me and my children.”

“Then…why?”

She glanced at Rain and her expression softened just a hair. “I came back for the same reason the human did. We must all face our inner demons someday. The Underground needs me. My children need me."

***

Alphys was still recovering from the previous day. All the amalgams had been sent home and she had spent the better part of last night writing letters of apology to the families she had not had time to visit in person. It had been a horrible and terrifying thing to endure but at the same time the feeling of freeing herself from those secrets was invigorating. It hurt but it was a good kind of pain. Each letter made her feel a little bit lighter, each secret  she shed left her feeling freer than she had been while holding it.

Now the lab was empty and she had turned her attention to working on Mettaton. She imagined that once the king caught wind of everything, she was as good as fired so she wanted to make good use of the facility while she still could.

“Ok. Let’s see if that did the trick.” She set down her tools and wiped her sweaty hands on her clothes. She flipped a few twitches, plugged in a few wires and swung Mettaton’s panel shut.

The Mew Mew Kissy cutie theme song began to play.

Alphys’s eyes shifted back and forth nervously. Oh yeah. She forgot she had replaced his boot up chime with that. Good thing he wasn’t awake to hear it. She hoped.

His lights began to blink to life one row at a time, then his screen lit up. There were a few internal whirrs and rattles that she didn’t like the sound of but it didn’t seem like anything serious had fallen out of place. So far so good.

“OoOOhhh YyyyEEEeeessS?” The screen glitched a bit before Mettaton’s default face popped up. His long jointless arms slid out of their compartments and he rubbed at his face and groaned. It took him a moment to come to and look around. “Alphys? What happened? Where am I? The last thing I remember was seeing a hideous pair of tennis shoes.”

Alphys clapped her hands together, grinning ear to ear as she observed her handiwork. “Oh! Good, you are awake! Can you hear me?”

“Of course I can hear you. So I must ask you again, what happened? One of my stunts did not go awry, did it?” He tried to get up but couldn’t. He looked down at himself in surprise and found that his bottom half was still missing. “Ah. Well, this is rather destressing!”

“D-don’t worry. You are going to be fine.” It was such a relief to be able to say that to him. “Tell me how many fingers I’m holding up.”

Two.”

“Great. And how’s the motion blur when I wave them like this?”

“Ugh.” He covered his screen with his hands. “Like you tried to take up oil painting in the rain.”

“Ah. R-right. Ok hold on.” She opened up his panel again and readjusted some of the settings. “How about now?”

“Much better.”

“Ok, great.” Her phone rang. “Oh, um, hold on. I-I think that’s Undyne.” She stepped away for a moment while Mettaton was left to slowly piece together the events that had led to him ending up in such a state. It was slowly coming back to him now.

“Oh! S-she’s at the castle?...Oh. She…she really…” Alphys took a deep breath. “Ok. I will be right over. N-no! No Undyne, I want to do this. I-it’s the least I can do to make up for things. It’s her choice to make so… yeah. Yeah I will miss her too. S-so. We should probably be there for her, right? Yeah. Ok. Ok. uh-huh. See you soon. Bye.”

She turned back to Mettaton. “S-sorry. I am going to have to finish working on you later.”

“Was that call about the human?”

Alphys gave him a guilty smile. “Y-yeah. She’s at the castle now. Asgore is going to make an announcement and retract his declaration of war, then break the barrier.”

“He’s  _what_!” He shrieked so loud his voice cracked, causing it to ring like a bad microphone. Alphys flinched and covered her ears. “Alphys! You can’t just leave me here! This is going to be the biggest moment in monster history! I run seven of the eleven TV channels in the Underground! I have to be there to cover this!”

“Um, I-I don’t think I can get the rest of your body put together in time to make it there.”

Mettaton took a deep whirring breath and braced himself against this horrible conundrum. “Forget the rest of my new body for now. Just save the legs.”  

***

The negotiations were certainly awkward and full of tense moments. How does one go about negotiating the terms of their death anyway?

Chara tried several times to make a mess of things but Rain managed to hold on to control, if not her dignity. Lucky for everyone involved Sans had a gift for defusing potential arguments and sliding in viable suggestions masked as bad jokes and puns.

In the end they came to an agreement. Toriel would attempt to take the souls- Rain being the last soul absorbed- and break the barrier. She would die and do her best to linger in place long enough for Toriel to catch her. Then, with the power of the other six souls, they would banish Chara. After that Toriel would hold the seven souls for a short period of time as insurance for monster kind while they got situated on the surface. This would also give Sans a chance to try and find Flowy, although that was a detail kept secret between Sans and Rain.

It felt weird planning for a future you were giving up. There were still holes and uncertainties to deal with but it was worth a shot. And so, not long after they had reached their agreements, Asgore contacted the media and arranged for an announcement to be held outside the castle.

The Underground was thrown into a frenzy over the next few hours. Monsters from the farthest reaches of the Underground crowded into the capital to try and get a glimpse of the king during his speech. It had been a long time since he had addressed them like this; not since the royal children had died and he had declared war.

It was here, in front of a massive crowd of curious eyes, that Rain stepped forward and Asgore explained their agreement. As a gesture of peace between humans and monsters, Rain offered her soul willingly to their cause. Asgore declared that in exchange for her soul he had decided to retract his declaration of war; for such a selfless sacrifice was proof that perhaps there was still hope for a peaceful future between humans and monsters.

Today the barrier would be broken.

So now everyone was getting ready. Asgore and Toriel were trying to smooth things out between one another off in the corner, talking in tense whispers. Toriel’s arms remained crossed but she kept her anger in check.

Rain nodded to herself in approval. Good. She did not have to like him. Rain had not asked them to go on a second honeymoon or anything like that, she had asked them to put their stubborn heads together long enough to ensure the monsters under their care did not get the short end of the stick once they got to the surface.

Alphys was scurrying around the room stuck on gear ten, dragging a bag of tools behind her while she set things up. She was constantly sliding through the readings being sent to her phone from the other souls that she had to monitor. Some guards had just been dispatched to bring said souls into a more secure room.

Alphys had to stop every few second to blow into a tissue and wave off any offered help, saying things like “N-no. No I’m ok. I want to do this myself. I owe it to her, you know?” As she went. She had not told Rain about this option until now because she did not want to have to help her die. She did not want to be the one to help set up the containers to hold her soul if something went wrong. But now that Rain had made her choice, she at least owed her a painless death.

The Royal guard was out in full force now., lining the halls and trying to keep the crowd on its best behavior as they pressed in and around the castle. Undyne was running herself ragged trying to organize everything. She took every opportunity she got to loudly proclaim her annoyance that they had not given her more than a few hours warning before all this took place.

Rain was left to sit in a waiting room off to the side of the room the souls were being moved too. She sat on a stretcher Alphys had brought with her and swung her legs back and forth, shoulders hunched. Sans sat in a chair across from her.

The muffled chatter of monsters left the air feeling charged with electricity and the room felt claustrophobic. This chaotic excitement pressing in around them only served to rile up an already angry Chara.  _“This won’t work. It can’t. The other souls already tried to take you from me and they failed. The world reset because of their actions back then and it can happen again!”_ With thinly veiled desperation Chara clawed at her.  _“Listen closely to me you fool, I will only offer this once. Take Asgore’s soul and leave. I will not try to reset.”_

Rain did not answer. There was a lot of room for sadism in that promise. If it was a promise at all.

_“Oh? You think you can ignore me? **So be it**.”  _ She slipped away to go pool her energy for whatever rebellion she had planned.

Rain rubbed her temple, Chara’s words causing her head to hurt. Holding on to her for this long was becoming tiring.

“How ya holdin’ up?” Sans finally asked.

She give him a so-so gesture. “About as well as you can expect. Feels kind of awkward to be the one dying to behonest. It’s like everyone is coming to watch me preform what’s going to be the most boring part of the event. “

“Scared?”

She huffed. “Of course I am. I don’t know what will be waiting for me when I die. I stopped praying to gods a long time ago. And now I have stopped running from devils. So this will be an interesting experience.” She stared off through a series of opened doors that allowed her to see the crowd of monsters that had gathered for the event. Many of them were excited. Overjoyed at the thought of being free. They felt nothing but euphoria at the idea that their children would grow up under the sun instead of having to scrape by in the mass grave the humans had once buried them in.

Others were star-struck. Asking for autographs or pictures with the seventh human before she was gone.

Some of them were there in protest against her choice, saying that she had done nothing wrong and couldn’t they just wait for a meaner human to fall down?

That was perhaps the strangest reaction she had to wrap her head around.

A lot of them were crying too. Crying for  _her_. Who would have imagined that?

 “You know, it’s funny,” Sans piped up, also eyeing the crowd. “For a long time I thought the anomaly was some sort of higher power in and of itself. Someone who had absorbed so much power that they had become their own god, you know? But you?” He looked her up and down and scoffed. “Nah. Sorry Rain, but you are the least imposing harbinger I have ever seen. To be honest it was both terrifying and a huge relief to find out you were just as confused as I was.”

She leaned back and braced her hands against the stretcher.  “Yeah, who knew the harbinger of life, death and All That Could Be, could be such a huge dork just winging it?”

“Eh, that’s alright. I’m starting to think that’s what every divine entity does- if there are any. Pray for mercy, pray for wrath, be answered or be ignored- I bet they are all just wingin’ it.”

“Maybe.” Her expression soured a bit. “Or maybe they just let all these things happen the way they do because it’s entertaining. Win, lose, live, die, suffer or be happy:  maybe things only happen the way they do because it makes for a good story. Cheap thrills.”

Sans smirked. “The sick fucks.”

“Hah. Yeah. Fuck those gods”

They watched Undyne shoulder through the crowd and have a word with the guards stationed at the entrance; sending them off to go help with something in another location while she took over for them. She was in her full set of armor now, minus the helmet. Yet the imposing captain still looked like she was on the verge of being eaten alive by the frenzied crowd.

Rain stopped swinging her legs back and forth and fixed Sans with a serious look. “Hey. I need you to make me a promise.”

“I don’t deal I’m promises pal.” 

“I noticed. But this one is important and you owe me one.”

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. “I’m listening.”

“Promise first.”

He scoffed. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Rain.”

“Come on. You will be able to remember this one if everything works out. Give me a break.”

“Gotta tell me what it is first.”

She thought for a moment, twiddling with her thumbs. “Promise me you will try to be happy? I mean really try. Try and use that real smile of yours once in a while. Enjoy life. For me.”

He drew in a sharp breath. “That’s uh, that’s a tall order you’re askin’ for, pal.”

“And I want you to look out for everyone for me too. The rest of the world up there isn’t so nice. So don’t be afraid to be the one to do something if it comes down to it. Don’t be afraid to act. Don’t be afraid to show mercy.” She frowned to herself and on a much less serious note added; “And don’t let the humans scam you out of your gold. That shit is valuable.” 

Sans closed his eyes and laughed softly. “Yeah. Alright. I promise.”

“You promise to do all of those things?”

He hesitated half a heartbeat before saying, “Yes. Since I owe you one.”

Their moment was broken up by the familiar metallic voice of a tv star who was in the middle of battling it out with an increasingly angry fish. “What are you talking about? Of course the human would want to see me! I am the Underground’s greatest star and her media mentor!”

“Hah! More like  _tor_ -mentor!” Undyne barked, pressing her palm out against the surging crowd and trying to shoo Mettaton away.

Rain and Sans watched the spectacle unfold. Even Toriel and Asgore paused long enough to watch as the rather scratched up and dented rectangular TV star danced around Undyne’s attempts to box him in. He had a rather fabulous pair of long black legs in hot pink knee-high boots in place of his usual wheel now. They were the only part of him that didn’t look like it had rode in on the face of a wrecking ball.

“Five minutes darling! Five minutes is all I ask! You can’t tell me the Underground doesn’t deserve absolute coverage for one of the greatest moments in monster history! The Underground’s star is about to meet the Overworld’s sun! And monster kind wants to hear from the human who will be responsible! They want to know what it was about her encounter with the famous Mettaton that changed her ways!” He put a hand up to his screen and swooned for dramatic effect.

“This is a privet matter between the king, the human and her chosen company. Now I am going to have to ask you to take a step back now, or you are going to have to  _hop_  back later!”

“Ah, yes. But consider this:” Mettaton bolted, trying to duck under Undyne’s arm and rush into the room, his entire entourage of cameras close behind him. 

“That’s it!” Undyne howled, catching him by the arm and yanking him back hard enough that a few stray nuts and bolts went skittering across the floor. “You are coming with me.” Undyne snapped, dragging him off.

Mettaton struggled against her, his camera crew catching it all. Mettaton held one glorious leg aloft, waving it high in the air with impeccable flexibility so that his heel was level with Undyne’s face. “Keep the leg in the shot! Just keep the leg in the shot!” He shouted as he was carted away. “Don’t let them see anything else- are we live? Oh! Greetings beauties and gentle beauties! I am here live, interviewing Undyne: Captain of the Royal Guard!”  

As Undyne dragged him out of view and earshot, the crowd parted to make way, pressing up against the guards that tried to take Undyne’s place.

They heard another recognizable voice shouting over the chaos as Undyne returned with another familiar face hot on her tail. “I can’t let you through man, I’m sorry.”

“But all my friends are in there!”

“I know but- no, wait! Stop!”

“It’s ok! I’m sure she will be absolutely overjoyed to see me!”

“Papyrus!”

The guards tried to stop him but alas, Undyne really had trained him well. He dodged them with ease and slipped through the gap. Before Undyne could pull him back he scanned the room and brightened like a lens flare upon seeing everyone gathered in the back room.

“Ah! There you are Rain! Hello Sans! Hello Toriel! Hello Alphys! Oh wowwie, the king is here too!”

Rain’s face paled; quite a feat considering how long she had already gone without sunlight. “Papyrus?”

Oblivious to her shock, he marched right inside. Behind him Undyne’s fins wilted in exasperation. She face-palmed before ordering the guards to cover for her. “Papyrus, come on. You shouldn't be here. Don’t make me carry you.”

“Nonsense! Like I said, all my friends are here. And Rain is about to break the barrier. I want to be here to see the Overworld with everyone. Rain can even show us where she grew up once we get out!”

Everyone seemed to have stopped breathing.

He put his hands on his hips and looked around expectantly. “So, when are the other six humans going to get here? Do we get to meet them too?”

“Papyrus…” Several people murmured at once.

Sans slid off of his chair, fidgeting with something in his pockets and carefully taking his brother by the arm and leading him off to the side. “Uh, bro, listen… Rain is not gonna be there to see things with us. She has to, uh, she has to go somewhere. She’s gotta go on ahead of us and…”

Papyrus’s face fell. He looked at his brother in shock. He began to play with the fingers of his gloves. “Well when will she be back? I…I suppose I could wait a little while for her. I’d really rather see the surface together.”

“She won’t be coming back, Pap.”

He turned to Rain, frowning in confusion. “Wait so, you were going to leave without even telling me?” He asked with genuine hurt.

She shrank in on herself, shoulders hunched. “Pap, I am about to die.” The word was no louder than a breath or air. It should have been impossible to hear over the turmoil of the crowd, now becoming muffled as the doors were pulled shut to give them some privacy. It was almost time.

He laughed nervously. “Nyeh heh heh, what?” He gave her a worried frown.

Undyne put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s the only way she can help us break the barrier.”

“N-no. No. that’s not right. What about all the other humans? What do they have to say about this?” His eyes darted from person to person for a happy answer but everyone remained silent. “That- but that’s not fair! Rain, you have been such a good person!” He marched across the distance and knelt in front of her, taking her hands in his. “You have been getting better! All the broken parts of you that you lost- we were putting them back together! Straight and narrow, remember? There has to be another way we can help you and you can help us! “

“I’m sorry, Papyrus.” She sniffed. “I made a very bad choice when I fell down here. I misjudged the importance of something- I lost something you can’t help me get back. It’s like they say: ‘sometimes people don’t realize what they have until it’s gone but that doesn’t always mean that you are meant to get it back.’” She squeezed his hands and tried to look happy despite her red nose and watery eyes. “Sometimes we just have to appreciate what was. This is my choice.”

Sometimes you are not meat to regain what you have lost. The words hit a sore spot with everyone.

Both Toriel and Asgore avoided looking at each other, heads bowed. They were remembering past sins and lost family members. They thought of what was and what could have been, until their hearts felt heavy and sore.

Undyne’s fingers traced along a scar half hidden by armor. She glanced at Alphys, who had quietly shuffled a little closer to her and was trying not to think of the half-formed nightmares she sometimes had of empty rooms and dusty camera feeds.

Sans and Rain looked at each other across the distance, both of them having found friendship at last just in time to have to say goodbye again.

Sometimes you didn’t get to keep good things. Sometimes they passed you by. Sometimes you didn’t get everything back. Sometimes you have to just appreciate what was.

She wiped her tears away with  her sweater. It was one of the ones Papyrus had given her because they were friends. “Dammit. I didn’t want you to have to see me like this. I didn’t want you to have to see this, Papyrus. I wanted you to remember me how I was.”

Papyrus looked up at her through her bangs. His voice was brittle with a laugh that sat on the verge of tears. “Rain, I am surprised at you.” He hugged her, tucking her head against his shoulder and resting his chin on the crown of her head. “I am not some fair-weather friend! I should be there for you. Even if it means it will hurt me because  _you_  hurt.” He pulled back enough to look at her. “So, will you let me stay?”

She nodded her head, still blubbering like a fool. God she loved these people. She loved them all so much. She even forgave all of their stupid secrets and failings. They had loved her despite all of her flaws. She didn’t want to have to leave them.

But she needed to protect them. She would do anything to protect them. Her love filled her with Determination and ironically enough, the thing that had helped her evade death for so long was the thing that was now helping her make peace with her decision to die.

Asgore shuffled a little, feeling out of place as the only one that did not really know her. “Ah, well I suppose they will be bringing in the souls any minute now. We should make sure everything is in order. Go ahead and take a moment to compose yourself.”

Undyne nudged Alphys. “Come on Al. We gotta go escort those souls.”

Rain composed herself a little. “Sorry,” she wiped away her tears, “I know everyone calls me Rain but today I’m trying to keep things to a _light drizzle_.”

Papyrus didn’t even complain about her pun.

It seemed to shake Sans from his thoughts though. “Hey.” He stepped forward and offered up his hand. “You did good, Rain.”

She smiled and reached out to shake his hand.

The room was filled with a long, loud, wet farting sound.

Papyrus spun around in perfectly framed shock and disgust.

Toriel put a hand over her chest and gave Sans a disapproving glare.

Undyne’s eye bulged and Alphys  shook her head. The room echoed with a resounding, horrified chorus of “ _Sans_!”

He gave her a sheepish grin. “The ol whoopee cushion in the hand trick. It’s always funny.”

He was met by an encore of aghast comments while Rain stared back at him, dumbfounded. He had done it. He had used the whoopee cushion again. He had finally brought it back.

“Aw jeez, come on. I was just trying to lighten the mood.” He made an unflattering grunt when Ran pulled him into a bear hug with one arm and re-emphasized her embrace with Papyrus with the other. “Thank you.” She whispered.

Alphys, who had been drifting away from the group to go tend to the souls, lost her battle against her conflict of interests and rushed back to join the hug.

Rain stretched her arms to maximum capacity in order to hold them all, standing up and twisting in place in order to try and pay attention to all three of them at once. Damn. She should have made a list of anime to recommend to Alphys. She would have liked to have seen Mew Mew Kissy Cutie three with her.

Toriel wandered in next, tentative and gentle. Her fur was warm like a blanket that had just come out of the dryer. Rain wasn’t sure if she was saying goodbye to Chara or her, but she accepted the affection nonetheless.

Asgore hung back, waiting for Alphys to peel herself away; seeming lonely and unsure of himself.

Rain wished she had had a better chance to get to know Asgore. She gestured for him to join the pile. No hard feelings. She wasn’t going to spend the last moment of her life holding on to something bitter.

Undyne made an exasperated sound and marched back over to them and very nearly suplexed them all with her rib-cracking mega-hug.

“So I guess my  _Rain_  of terror is about to end, huh guys?” Rain had stopped crying but now it seemed that everyone else had started.

“Oh no! It’s a flash flood!” Papyrus bawled. 

“Heh. Nice one bro.”

“I’m too sad to stop the bad puns!” He whimpered. “Truly this is the worst of days!”

Rain pressed her cheek against his in an attempt to comfort him. “Oh sweetheart, I know.” She looked at them one by one, remembering all the things that had brought them together. She wished she could put into words how much they meant to her. She wished she didn’t have to give them such a good reason to cry. “It’s ok to be sad. I’m sad too. This is a sad thing. But please, when you get outside, remember to smile. Smile for me. I would love to see the sun again but I would rather see you smile.” She rested her head on someone. She didn’t even know who anymore. “I love you guys.”

There was a scream.

Shouting.

Glass shattered.

Sans flitted away.

The door that lead towards the soul chamber was blasted off of its hinges.

A shill, warped voice echoed against the stone. “You  _idiots_!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh neat! you guys i am almost at 100 kudos! When i started out i thought it would be really nice to get 100 kudos and 1,00 hits. Maybe I will hit my goal before the last chapter! :D


	54. Save the Rainbow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Save the Rainbow**  
>  You face the god of Hyperdeath!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up buttercup. Its going to be a long chapter.

The voice came from everywhere at once.  It was both inside and outside of the room, scraping against her ears. Each syllable was a ringing trill and a thrumming tremor like the beat of a war drum. Like the tentacles of a hungry old god, thick vines with red thorns as long as her thumb came shooting out of the corridor; exploring the room like searching fingertips.

_“Oh no.”_ Chara gasped, her entire existence accumulating into a bottomless pit of dread.

Sans was already in motion but what it was he had planned to do, they would never know. Several images overlapped in rapid succession, creating an after effect as he moved. Rain watched the squat skeleton teleport across the room several times in the two heartbeats it took the rest of them to react. Every time one of his after images dogged a grasping vine, the world around her would twitch.

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

_Flicker._

Until all of his after images had vanished and a vine twice as thick as her arm snapped around him with a cruel sense of satisfaction and slammed him into the ground. Something between a grunt and a moan escaped him, his ribs cracking loud enough against the stone for everyone to hear.

“Sans!” Rain screamed, her cry echoed by the rest of her friends.

 “And stay down, if you know what’s good for you!” The voice hissed.

Aside from Rain, the rest of them did not sense the flickers that warned of the resets. They had no time to react before the vines drew towards them, shooting forward and wrapping them all up in a blanket of thorns. A few feeble attempts at a struggle were made but no ground was gained.

A warped chuckle bounced across the walls. The creature once known as Flowey crawled into view on a bed of writhing thorns. He was a single dainty blossom among a writhing green sea. His eyes had gone nearly black save for a spark of dangerous white light gleaming at their center. The room seemed to darken when he entered. Gravity seemed to warp, causing light, thought and substance to all lean in towards him. Power rolled off of him in waves that chewed at the edges of the room around and made reality fray at the seams.

An unsettling white fog seemed to trail after him like a cloak.

He turned his perfectly smooth face to Rain and smiled a too-smooth smile. “Howdy, Chara!” He chirped. The roomed seemed to pulse into varying degrees of darkness with each syllable. The strange fog kept coming, drifting towards his center. “Golly, isn’t this a surprise.”

_“Don’t talk to him. Don’t even look at him. He’s too strong, do you hear me? He will crush you.”_ Chara’s presence was a glacier of dread rresting on Rain’s chest.

“You know Chara, what you were trying to pull was a nice plan. A good plan.” His smile shrank, his little featureless mouth resting in a surprised “O” shape. “Oh, trust me; it’s what I would have done too. It’s what I  _have_  done, or at least what I tried to do in the past- not that I ever managed to succeed. Kindness- even the fake kind- doesn’t really pay off in the end.”

He pulled Rain closer, tilting his petal head to the side. He seemed to be looking at Rain now, not his hidden sibling. “Did you even know what she was waiting to do? Do you know why she let you try things your way? Its because she already had your soul, so all she needed was a monster soul to escape. That stupid king’s power, his soul, it would have given her enough LOVE to overpower the both of you if you had absorbed it. He  _had_ fought in a war and killed several humans after all. And when he died that power would be absorbed and you would have lost control again. But I guess you wizened up to that, didn’t you? Who would have thought of asking the _queen_  for help after all these years?" HE shook his head like a chiding parent, "And now poor Chara is all out of plans.”

“I was working on an alternative! I had a backup plan! You know I did! But you ruined it again, Asriel. You ruined everything just like you always do.” Chara spat, neglecting her own advice to stay silent.

He held her high overhead so he could look up at her. For a second a look of confusion, perhaps even fear at having ruined her plans once again, flashed across his features. But then it vanished and he smiled. “Nah. Truth is she’s stronger than you now, isn’t she?” He winked, sticking out his tongue. “I’m sure you would have let her kill Asgore if she wanted to but it looks like she surprised you this time. It was never your choice to spare everyone in the first place, was it? When I saw you showing mercy that wasn’t you messing with your toys, was it? You weren't doing it so you could fly under the radar of all the stronger monsters by acting friendly- you were doing it because you losing control. And Chara, my dear friend Chara, you know as well as I do that creatures like us don’t deserve pity when they grow weak.”

A fleet of whirling pellets morphed into view above him. His mouth opened into a bottomless tear of blackness. “We only deserve to kill, or be killed.” The pellets snapped forward, boring into their skin; tearing holes in their sweater and staining it red.

Rain hissed, trying to pull away from the biting pellets but she was forced into motionlessness by the thorns. “Flowey, why are you doing this?” She pleaded through gritted teeth. “It was almost over! We were almost free! We were ready to escape the time loop!”

A second fleet of whirling pellets pulled themselves into existence. “Boy you really are a special kind of **stupid** , huh? I thought by now you had figured it out. You see Rain, this is all just a  **game**. A  **story** , an adventure made  **for**  and  **by** gods like us simply because it is  **fun**.” He giggled. “It’s fun to make you  _hurt_.” The petals whizzed past him, biting into her skin once more and burning like fire.

Rain whimpered and Chara cursed, struggling against their bindings. Somewhere behind them their friends called out to her only to be silenced as the vines tightened.

“It’s fine. It’s ok, I’m fine.” Rain lied. “Don't- don’t give him a reason to hurt you.”

“That’s right! Don’t give me a reason to kill you!” He chirped, a lazy vine scooping the limp Sans from the floor and waving him around like a trophy. “It’s more  _fun_  when she still has something to lose.”

Chara snarled, baring their teeth and spitting at him. “You little shit. We should have uprooted you when we had the chance!”

“Careful sister. I thought you would be grateful. They were about to banish you, weren’t they? They actually found a way to take away your host. So when you think about it, isn’t this the better option?” Flowey twisted his way up to them, black eyes gleaming and his mouth pulled back into a hungry scarecrow smile. He twisted his head around on his vine until it hung at a disturbing angle. “Besides, I can’t simply let you  _leave_ now that I have you back. If you left the Underground satisfied, you would never come back; would you?

“You wouldn't want to play with me anymore if I let you win,” His voice grew a hair softer, a glint of worry reflecting in his eyes as he recalled vague memories of his fate in past resets. “If I let you keep control of the timeline you would destroy it. And if I let  _her_  win?” He jabbed Rain with a vine and spared a glance at Sans. “I’d still be dead. They would hunt me down.”

Another cluster of pellets formed. They dug into her skin one by one, acting as periods and punctuation of his every word. “Now, listen Rain. I know you want your happy ending. And this wouldn’t be any fun for me if you gave up. So let me dangle some bait for of you.” He gave her a sly look, ignoring her yelps of pain. “If you find a way to beat me, I’ll give you your happy ending. I’ll let everyone go! I’ll even break down the barrier.” He giggled. “But that’s not likely to happen. No, instead I’ll get to dangle victory in front of you like this,” He gestured at everyone with his vines, their thorns cutting scores in the stone. “Over and over and  **over again**. Forever.” Another fleet of bullets appeared. “ **Now, die**.”

She squeezed her eyes shut against the oncoming attack. But it never came. Instead she felt a wall of heat wrap itself around her. There was the whoosh of roaring flames and the pellets were gone.

“What?” Flowey balked.

Rain opened her eyes and turned to see Toriel lowering a hand, her fur matted with dust from fighting to free her arm from the vines. “Do not be afraid, Rain. No matter what happens, we will always be there to help you.”

Flowey summoned another series of pellets.

A glowing blue spear hummed to life in front of her, spinning around and knocking more pellets aside.

A bone rose up from the ground, blocking the remaining bullets. “That’s right!” Papyrus declared. “Rain, I know you can win. Just do what I would do! Believe in you!”

“Hah! Nice try you little weed!” Undyne barked. “But if Rain could get past me she can get past anyone. So we will be with her all the way!”

“T-Technically it should be i-impossible for you to beat him.” Alphys tried to smile through her fear and gave her an awkward thumbs up. “B-but if anyone can find a way to do it- you can.”

Flowey snarled at them, a flurry of vines whipping around to silence her friends. A feeble bolt of lightning managed to bat some of the vines away just long enough for another roaring wave of fire to hold the line, turning the tendrils to ash.

“Human…” Asgore rumbled, head bowed and horns displayed to the looming threat. “For the future of all humans and monsters… you have to stay Determined!”

Sans’s eyes flickered open to the surprise and relief of everyone in the room. He wiped a trickle of red off of the corner of his jaw. He winced against the pain but still managed to breathe out a few words in mock confidence. “Huh?  You still haven’t beaten this guy yet?” He lifted a trembling hand, summoning a large rolling bone that rammed itself against the closed chamber doors and knocked it off of its hinges, allowing the crowd of monsters outside a glimpse at the hidden chaos. His hand fell to his side as the crowd of monsters started to pour in, rushing to defend their king. He winked at her. “Then allow us to give you a hand.”

Flowey screeched, vines writhing. “No! No! Get back! Get back! All of you!” He shrieked.

Rain struggled against her bonds, her heart racing. This was her chance!

Chara sat in the pit of her stomach like an unenthusiastic ball of mud.  _“No. Wait for it.”_

Everything stopped.

It was like someone had hit the pause button on a movie, freezing everyone in place. Fireballs hung in the air like Christmas lights and waves of bobbing bones stopped as if standing at attention.

Slowly, Fowey’s monstrous head turned back around to look her in the eye. “Haha, fooled you, didn't I? Bait, remember?” The strange mist that had been drifting towards the flower’s core up until now began to thicken. The unearthly hum of growing magic became so obvious that the walls vibrated. “And now? Now I own all of their souls!” He stretched up to his full height, the fog growing thicker and thicker, pulling itself into his stem faster and faster.

Whispers, screams, laughter, privet conversations held within the solitary minds of everyone around her, all of it began to rattle up against the edge of her awareness. The light in the room fell inwards like the world was being sucked into a black hole. On either side of her everyone she knew, everyone she cared about, everyone who had come to her aid, began to disintegrate. No.  _Evaporate_. There was no dust. They turned into clouds of light and magic and vanished. It was then with a gut-wrenching certainty she noticed the odd shape of the fog.

Hearts. Distorted, upside-down, little white glowing hearts. Monster souls. Hundreds, of them.  _Thousands_  of them; all being sucked into the creature that had once called itself Flowey.

Rain fought against the growing pull. She could feel her own soul trying to be sucked in but Chara acted like an anchor. They pulled each other along, their Determination allowing them to fight what no one else could.

There was a rush of wind and the world went dark. Not like they were passing out, but like they had died. Chara spun around in the void, expecting to see the long tunnel that would bring them back to their body. Instead they found themselves looking at a small, familiar shape that blocked the way; a monster child with soft white fur and long floppy ears. He looked to be about twelve, still waiting on the growth spurt that would allow him to reach the top shelves in a kitchen. 

Chara drew back, something strange and distant stirring inside of her before she let it die. He was still wearing the same shirt from the day they had died.

Rain rose slowly in the darkness, finding a floor collecting underneath her. When she looked down at her hands she could still see a transparent outline of her body. She looked around and could see the fading outline of the palace lurking behind the darkness, like an after image.

So they were not dead.  _Yet_. They were standing on the edge of the void.

The child spoke, his voice far different from that of the boy he had once been. “Finally.” He sighed, “I was so tired of being a flower.” He turned to face them, slowly, deliberately. For a moment his eyes continued to hold that cold, mocking darkness that Fowey’s eyes had held. Then his gaze darted down to Rain’s chest, where her soul was easily visible through the ghost of her outline. He focused in on the darkness that clung to it- still as stubborn as ever but with fewer anchors of corruption holding her down now.

“Howdy, Chara! I knew you were there but it’s still nice to see the proof for myself.” Something close to a corrupted, excited version of joy overtook his face, even when neither of them answered him. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Don’t you remember me?” He held out his hands as if to offer a hug. He tilted his head, his small fangs visible. “It’s me. Your  **best friend**.” His body warped, bubbled and twisted. He grew taller. Colder. Darker. His horns grew and twisted and the world around him began to shine with an impossible spectrum of colors yet his eyes remained the same: black and gleaming. “Asriel Dreemurr!”

There was a brief moment of realization where Chara had a chance to take it all in before the world erupted into chaos. The only thing she could managed to say was a rather bewildered groan of:  _“Oh for fuck’s sake, is he’s still using that OC?”_

Then world erupted into a cascade of fire.

Rain dashed to the side and began to weave her way back and forth between the waves of angry flame that rolled forth out of the void. She had no idea what she was doing. What was there left to do? How did you defeat a _god_?

“You know, I don’t even care about destroying this world anymore.” Asriel hummed, flicking a lazy claw in their direction and causing the world to erupt into another storm of fire. “Who cares about our old childhood plans? After I defeat you and gain total control of the timeline, I just want to reset everything.”He held out his hands and two twin swords pulled themselves into existence. He gave them a test swing and stepped forward, jolting ahead in a blur of motion until they were toe to toe.

Rain danced backwards, giving up ground with every evaded swing. The air around them hummed with power, Asriel was a whirl of black fabric and fur, laughing with glee.

Each swing left a sparkling trail of embers that grew brighter as they drifted towards her, trying to latch onto her like burs. Her arm brushed against one and it exploded into a bolt of blue lightning that bit down into the darkness mere inches from her face. The pulse of energy it left behind triggered a chain reaction with the other sparks, causing bolts of energy to snap down against the void around her one after another. Orange, yellow, green, blue, one after the other.  _Snap! Bam! Boom! Crack!_

The array left her blinded, ears ringing and her outline singed.

She tried to call out for help but no one could hear her above the roar. No one was left to see her in this place. It was her and Asriel, dancing back and forth as he flickered forward once more and sent another chain of sparks cascading towards her with a swing of his saber.

She tried to outpace the attacks but her vision was scored with white marks thanks to the lightning. 

Asriel laughed at her failings.

She called out for help again, but no one came.

No.

Wait.

Someone did hear her. Someone did come.

When she was sure the embers were going to hit her full on, her legs dropped out from under her and she rolled away. 

_Crack! Snap! Boom! Crack!_ A rainbow of lightning scored the floor where she had been just moments ago. It took Rain a second to register who had saved her. “Chara?”She staggered away and tried to put some distance between her and her attacker.

_“What? Did you think I would just stand there and take it? D_ _on’t act so surprised. I keep telling you Rain, I won’t be anyone’s puppet. Not even his.”_

Asriel drifted after them. He dropped the swords, letting them disintegrate before they touched the invisible floor.  He lifted a single hand and pointed in their direction, a long multicolored cannon whirring with energy forming at his side. “You can’t win anymore. All your progress, everyone’s memories, I’ll bring them all back to zero. And then? Then we can do everything all over again!” The cannon fired, sending pulsing stars after them in rapid bursts of fire. One of them caught Rain in the leg just under the knee, knocking her to the ground and burning through her skin. She screamed.

“And you know what the best part is? You’ll do it! You’ll lose to me again,” he brought down another star right on top of her, blowing her sideways like a ragdoll.

“And again!” A cannon fired, catching her in the side.

“And again!” A wall of fire chased after her, biting at her heels.

“And why? Because you want a ‘happy ending.’ Because you ‘love your friends.’” His feet touched the floor. He didn’t make a sound when he stalked over to them, indifferent to the pool of blood they were laying in. “Isn’t that delicious? Your Determination, the power that allowed you to come this far… it’s going to be your downfall.”

Chara’s existence shrouded her in a numbing darkness, sharing the pain. _“Switch with me. Go heal.”_ She ordered, pushing ahead as Rain rolled back.

The sky was falling. Literally. Multicolored stars the size of cars were falling from the distant nothingness above them and exploding into iridescent shrapnel. The heat burned their cheeks and nearly knocked them flat as soon as they managed to get back on their feet.

“Dammit Asriel, why where you always so insistent on using so many colors?” Chara panted, trying to keep ahead of the starfall.

“Chara! How nice of you to finally join us.” Ariel sung, sending tongues of flame chasing after her. “I was starting to worry you had given up.”

“Given up? Hah!” She taunted, sliding through a closing gap as lightning snapped at her heals. “I have  **never** given up. You mistake my patience for failure. I have survived everything life has ever thought to throw at me.” She felt Rain’s Determination burning bright against her own; ice and fire somehow solidifying into something stronger. “The world tried to burn me but I came out stronger. It tried to throw me down a mountain but I got back up. I have been poisoned, stabbed, chilled to the bone and sent back in time. The number of bodies this world has stolen from me is higher than the number of kids in the average, sniveling human family!”

Flecks of surplus magic began to collect around them, drawn in by their Determination. If Chara had one advantage here that Rain did not, it was her past experience in turning Asriel's magic into substance.

She could feel the empty spaces in their pockets filling up. Curious, Chara reached into her pocket, wishing desperately for a weapon, _wiling_ it into existence. She grasped something solid. The sensation of ice and fire branched out and became something new, stretching out in her hands and forming a long knife-tipped spear.

“And do you know why I’m still here, Asriel?” She laughed, gripping the spear in hand and dancing forward.

Asriel’s eyes widened and he summoned his own weapons once more, blocking her attack and sending a wave of sparks across the darkness, each one erupting into lightning in a ring around them.

“Give it up, Chara. I have six human souls to aid me. The scrap of human existence you have been holding on to hardly even counts as  _one_!”

Chara laughed, swinging at him again, exchanging blow after blow, moving faster and faster as Rain’s healing took effect. “You always were rather thick in the skull.” She growled. “I’ll tell you why I’m not dead yet. Because even when who I was rotted away, it couldn’t kill my memory. My idea. My methods. It’s because I’m the voice that sits in the back of everyone’s head. I’m the whisper that makes you get back up again when you don’t think you can- when you don’t think you  _should_. ‘I have no other choice.’” She danced forward, stabbing at Asriel’s chest, eyes focused on the faint glimmer of the human souls hidden within. She had to get closer.

“'I can’t stop now,’ they say, ‘I just want to see what happens,’ they reason.” She cut through him, tearing a wide hole in his robe.

He drifted backwards, annoyed. The weapon seemed to have somehow miss his flesh completely and the fabric sewed itself back together before she had even finished the motion.

“Or my personal favorite: ‘I  _have_  to do this!’” She swung again.

Asriel deflected the blow with a lazy swing, snapping the spear off near the blade and sending a spider web of fire and lightning shooting out overhead before it arced back down around them, scoring the floor and biting at Chara's limbs. The shaft of the spear broke into splinters that burned up before they touched the ground,  the blade cartwheeling overhead.

“That kind of reasoning, that Determination- that drive to keep going past all reason? That feeling-”

Asriel’s other saber swung down, ready to cleave her in half. 

Chara jumped up and caught the blade of her spear, gripping it like a knife and using it to block the blow. She grinned at their eyes met. “ **Is me**!”

Her blade shattered but in that moment Rain reemerged from her healing duties and rushed forward to do the only thing they really could do. She reached out to the human souls and called for help.

Something deep inside Asriel’s chest pulsed, several colored lights peering through the delta rune sigil draped over his chest. His eyes widened and he staggered back, a hand going up against his chest.

Rain cried out for help again. They were all sleeping in there somewhere. She knew they were. She just had to get them to listen.

Asriel bared his fangs and his whole body boiled. “Enough! I’m done messing around.” The lights in his chest vanished behind a curtain of black, snuffed out like feeble candles. He stabbed his saber into the ground at his feet. The white sparks in his eyes became angry flames and the void itself seemed to bend in around him. His voice became a guttural growl. “It’s time to purge this timeline once and for all!” 

They could feel themselves being sucked in towards something again. They were being pulled deeper into the void while Azriel’s body twisted into something grotesque right in front of them. Rain felt like she was shrinking, all of his previous attacks and spent magic falling back in towards him as he grew larger and larger until the entirety of his laughing maw took up her vision.

Scores of magic residue passed her by, burning her as she clawed against the nothingness and tried to keep herself from being sucked in. She could feel herself slipping away; not just her footing but her whole body. They were being sucked into the void; ripped from their timeline by an angry god.

“No! No!” They cried out together.

The blackness ate away at Rain’s vision with every heartbeat. Her head thrummed with the cruel laughter of the Underground’s lost prince as her life force was siphoned into the void.

“I…can’t. I’m too close to die now.” She hissed. She felt her body die and her soul unravel.

She was drifting, drifting and falling towards the growing dark.

A cold, stabbing pain laced through her core.

She could feel the icy darkness strain and tremble as the threads of Chara’s corrupted black tendrils struggled to keep hold of her soul.  _“Then don’t.”_ Chara commanded.  _“ **Pull. Yourself. Back. Together!** ”_

Somewhere in the voided, the impossible happened.

Somewhere in the void, the pitiless ink of Chara’s imperfect existence helped Rain pull the two bleeding halves of her soul back together and allowed them both to draw breath once more. The sensation was enough to leave her staggered. She couldn’t see her body anymore, only the faint glow of where she imagined her limbs should be.

There was no floor now. No up or down. No faint outline of the timeline she had known, yet she was still alive.

Asriel spared them a moment of surprise before he recovered and held his hands high overhead. “Even after that attack, you are still hanging on? Impressive.” A storm of meteors sprung from his fingertips and honed in on their soul, aiming to catch them off guard before they could recover.

Chara took over again, spinning around the attacks and adjusting to their weightlessness fast enough to push themselves out of the way of the brunt of the attack. Their soul trembled, Chara was panting from the strain but did not relent.

“Chara what are you doing?” Rain wheezed.

“Shut up. Just shut up! Help me keep us alive, you idiot.” She snapped, dodging another swarm of attacks. “We need to get closer. You have to try and wake the humans up again.”

“I don’t know if we  _can_  wake them up. I think he has them buried too deep.”

“Only one way to find out.”

Rain considered the proposal for half a heartbeat before she aligned herself with Chara. There was nothing else to do but keep trying. If Asriel had their way, then they would both lose.

“Alright then.” They whispered.

“Take a deep breath…”

“ **And stay determined**.”

They stumbled at first but soon their movements began to synchronize. They wove through the attacks, the two entities taking turns dogging bullets and healing the injuries that cut through their soul.

“I’m surprised you are willing to help me.” Rain commented, pushing off of the nothingness and saving them from another hail of comets.

“I’m helping myself.” Chara snapped. “I can respect a good old-fashioned banishing but what Asriel plants on doing- forcing me to relive reset after reset for his amusement? I won’t take that lying down. The timeline is  _mine_. I don’t care if he’s a god-” A comet of light crashed into them, cutting their soul in half in a blinding display of light. The black tendrils Chara had used to knit them together were severed and their souls began to drift apart once more.

In the blinding haze of pain, Rain reached out with her own light, stretching through the void and wrapping herself around the trailing threads of ink. They roared, pulling each other back together.

Chara kicked off against the nothingness, flying off towards the imposing mountain that called itself the God of Hyper Death. “I refuse to be his play thing!”

They were little more than a spec compared to the looming creature that called itself Asriel. Yet as they drew closer Rain did everything she could to fight against him and begged the souls to awaken. She pleaded with them to fight back and save the last remnants of their world from vanishing forever.

Asriel watched them and laughed. “Ah…I can feel it. Every time you die, every time you are split apart, your grip on this world slips away. Every time you die your friends forget you a little more.” He stretched out his twisted arms, claws brushing against the cracks of darkness that drifted in around them- weak spots in the timeline. They widened at his presence and began to bleed. Magic, life, light and substance all began to leak out through the cracks in a blurred mist of color that oozed through the void’s membrane and was absorbed by the hungry god.

“Your life will end here, in a world where no one remembers you.” Rain and Chara slowed, the oppressing dark pressing in around them, smothering them until it choked their light and rooted them in place at Asriel’s feet. He sneered down at them. “In a few moments you’ll forget everything, just like the rest of them. You will forget your fate and your path. You will awaken knowing only that you have lost something. And knowing you, you will be determined to find a way to reclaim it.” He sighed wistfully, watching the growing cracks. “That attitude will serve you well in the next life.”

They struggled to get closer, trying in vain to reach the human souls. It felt like they had been pressed into a tar pit, their muscles straining against the inky black in vain.

“It’s no good.” Chara panted. “They can’t hear us out here and I can’t move. He’s using the monster souls to keep them cut off. There has to be thousands of them swirling around inside of him; they’re like static.”

Rain fought to inch closer but it was no good. They could no longer move.

Asriel pelted them with another attack. They cried out against the pain and struggled to hold their soul together.

Chara watched the timelines bleed into Asriel with a bleak sort of awe. The words of monsters from past timelines came echoing back with a cruel sort of irony.

_“Dark, Darker yet darker. The darkness keeps growing. Until suddenly everything ends.”_

_“Some believe the prophecy tells of an angle of death. A being come to free us from our mortal coils.”_

“The whole world is ending.” She murmured.

Rain reached for their last save point. It was the only way back now. They were out of their league.

Nothing happened.

She tried to call them back all the way to the beginning. She tried to reach out to one of the many cracks and fall through it into the Ruins again.

Nothing happened.

Chara laughed, low and mirthless. “It looks like saving this run really is impossible.” She mused, straining to keep them together. They had nowhere to run. They would die here in the nothingness just as her brother wanted, calling out to deaf ears. Then they would play out this fate over and over again until the timeline could take no more of it. She looked up at Asriel, angry that this was to be her fate. She had no one left to turn to. No ace to pull from her sleeve.

Asriel’s fur rippled like waves of gain, giving off a soft glow as a fog of souls raced just beneath his skin.

Her eyes widened in realization. She gripped Rains awareness and drew her attention to the sea of souls. “But maybe… with what little Determination we have left, we can save something else.”

“The others.” Rain whispered.

“They are in there somewhere, right?”

Their body strained against their invisible chains, their soul glowing brighter and brighter as their Determination returned; a single red flame pushing out against the void.

 “You can’t let him take me.” Rain warned. “He will try to pull me in but you will have to lead me back out.”

“I will be your anchor.” Chara promised, her tendrils of corruption sinking deeper around her soul like barbed wire.

 Rain grit her teeth and endured.  “Papyrus!” She cried out, looking up at the countless stirring souls beneath the god’s fur. “Undyne! Alphys, Sans, Toriel, Asgore! Where are you? Answer me!”

Nothing.

Nothing…

Then… There! Among the fog she saw something glimmer. It pulsed in recondition. Their voices came to her in whispers that were felt more than heard.

_“I must find and capture a human!”_

_“I failed them…”_

_“I don’t deserve forgiveness”_

_“if i keep the anomaly chasing after secrets, maybe we will live a little longer.”_

_“I must shoulder this burden so others do not have to.”_

_“My children…why couldn’t I save them?”_

Rain let a tentative smile cross her lips. Chara turned that smirk into a grin. They were still there. They were lost, afraid and alone but they were still there. And they were  _listening_.

Asriel’s eyes narrowed. “What do you think you are doing?”

They laughed, pushing themselves towards that glimmer of hope, slowly gaining speed as they stretched out their soul and reached out for contact. Their voices echoed against each other as they spoke to Asriel.

 “You forgot something about us, Asriel.”

**“You know better than anyone that there are people who have managed to survive even when the world said it was impossible.”**

They couldn’t move. Not really. They were rooted in place. But they could still reach for it. They could still make themselves stretch. If they got close enough, the vortex that had swallowed all the other souls would try to draw them I as well. “If you thought that by taking away everything I ever had, everything I ever worked to save, it would make me give up- then you are wrong.”

**“Sans survived on his cunning, Papyrus was spared by his kindness. You survived thanks to a _fluke_.” **

The familiar souls began to swirl and stretch towards them in turn, the voices of her friends becoming all the more clear. “You don’t understand what has kept me Determined all this time, do you? I have kept going because I have always had something bigger than myself to fight for. And now everything, everyone you took- I have to get them back! I have worked too hard, I have come too far to lose now in this pitiless dark! So long as I’m Determined, I can still save them. And you know what?”

**“Creatures like me, creatures like Rain- we have had no such mercies to depend upon. We have had to fight and claw for every inch we gain. The world wonders what we are. Angels? Demons? No. I’ll tell you what we are: _we. Are. Still. Here!”_**

“And as long as there is someone left to save, my Determination.  **Won’t. Die!** ”

For one brief moment, Asriel’s grip on them faltered, and Rain dove into the sea of souls.

***

She was lost in the haze at first. The current of souls pulled her this way and that, the directionless world spinning out of control before she felt a sharp tug on her heart that pulled her back from the brink of losing herself.

She looked down at her chest, spying a slender tendril of corruption anchoring her to the void outside. Both she had Chara had stretched themselves incredibly thin to make this work.

She didn’t have much time. Lost within the endless amalgamation of an entire civilization’s thoughts, the people she cared about were trying to call out to her. All she had to do was listen.

She waded through the static, the soul of strangers becoming a haze of black and white.

Sans. She had to find Sans. She should save the strongest monsters first.

She did not know how long she searched. It could have been seconds. It could have been years. But eventually she found someone and as she drew closer the cloud of souls parted, creating a dark room just beneath Asriel’s skin where two familiar outlines took shape as they tried to remember themselves. Yet a haze of other lost souls fluttered around them like flies, disrupting their identity like static clogging a channel with bad reception.

She tried to speak but her mouth was filled with static.  _“Sans.”_ She was startled to find that her thoughts seemed to echo through the gap between them. She called out a second time with more confidence.  _“Sans?”_ She drifted towards the skeleton and tried to dispel the other souls around him but they would not leave.

_“why couldn’t it have taken me instead?”_ His voice echoed inside her head, shaking with emotion.

She reached out and tried to take him by the shoulders and shake him out of it but her hands fell right through him. She reached for his hand to try and lead him away but again she could not grasp it.

A distant part of him seemed to notice her efforts and scoffed at them.  _“heh. just give up…i did.”_

_“Sans please, you have to wake up. Everything is in danger. Everything could still end. The ending you saw can still be a bad one. So for once in your life, do something! Help m-ah!”_ She jerked back in alarm when something sharp bit into her back. She spun around and saw Papyrus’s lanky figure standing across from her, sending a trail of bones marching her way.

She darted out of the way, feeling her threadbare lifeline to Chara tremor. If she died in here she could not be stitched back together.  _“Papyrus!”_

_“Everyone will finally notice me once I capture a human!”_  He shouted.

_“Papyrus, stop it. Don’t you remember me?”_ She glanced back at Sans. He didn’t seem to be responding to her but maybe if she could save Papyrus…? _“Think back, Papyrus! Try and remember. We are friends. You came to visit me in the lab when no one else wanted to even look at me.”_

Papyrus twitched, his arms drawing in a little closer to his chest.  _“They keep lying to me… Why?”_ The pace of the bones intensified, rushing after her in a blur.

She weaved between them, stopping and starting as the attacks came after her in a pattern of blue and white.

Papyrus began to tremble, his fear making the bones march ever faster.  _“Why won’t they tell me what’s going on? Why do I keep dreaming of darkness?”_

Rain struggled onward, leaping over bleached fences and ducking under the bones that stabbed down from the invisible ceiling overhead.  

  _Why does she keep hurting me? I only want to be friends.”_

The battered shape of Rain’s heart trembled in sorrow as she reached out to him, aching to pull him from the memories she had once inflicted upon him.  _I’m sorry Papyrus. I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I was in a bad place and I did bad things. There is no excuse for it. But you helped me get better, remember?”_ She winced when a bone caught her in the outline of her shoulder but she did not shy away from her path. She was almost there, just a little closer.  _“You fed me spaghetti. I couldn’t actually taste it but I ate it anyway because you made it with love. It was the first time in years that someone had treated me like a real person and the smile you gave me when I asked for seconds lit up the room._ ” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory, a small thought of laughter escaping her. “ _For a moment you made me feel so good that I completely forgot I was bleeding out on Undyne’s floor! Do you remember?”_

Something shimmered in the air above him, taking on a ghastly shape that made Rain’s heart skip a beat. The outline of a grinning skull hovered overhead, the orange light in its eyes slowly growing as it began to wake up.  _“Why won’t anyone speak to me?”_

Ran picked up the pace, getting hit by stray bones for her troubles.  _“You wrote me letters every day! You came to play checkers with me and got one stuck in your eye! And when I finally broke down and cried, you held me. You held me Papyrus- when the rest of the world was afraid to touch me you hugged me and didn’t let go!”_

The skull opened its mouth and glared down at her- a miniature sun growing between its teeth. Papyrus’s sagged in place, his voice small and sad. The lost souls buzzed around him like a cloud of flies blocking out his face.  _“…Am I not a good friend?”_

Rain lunged; arms outstretched as she dove under the blaster and prayed that this time she wouldn’t pass through her friend when she reached him. Her face collided with his chest, arms wrapping around him as she squeezed her eyes shut and hugged him as hard as she could.  _“You are my friend, Papyrus. You saved me once. Now I’m here to return the favor.”_ She waited, holding her nonexistent breath as she waited for the blaster to go off.

A gloved hand fell against her shoulder. _“Rain?”_

Rain opened her eyes and looked up into the somewhat confused face of her friend. The cloud of souls was gone. His doubts had been dispelled and his identity recovered. 

She beamed up at him, glad to have at least one of her friends back.  _“Glad to have you back, buddy.”_

He looked around the void, confused.  _“Where- where am I?”_

Rain wasted no time. She took him by the hand and lead him back towards Sans.  _“A monster named Asriel has absorbed everyone’s souls. I’m trying to find the human souls so I can ask for help but there are too many monster souls in the way. I need your help finding everyone else so we can get them to remember. Only then can they fight back.”_

_“Is… is that Sans over there?”_

_“Yes. He won’t respond to me. But I think he may respond to you. Go to him. Save him.”_

Papyrus ran forward, calling out his brother’s name.  _“Sans? Sans! It’s me, your brother, the Great Papyrus! Rain says you need to wake up! We have to save everyone!”_

Sans shrugged.  _“why even try? you will never see em again.”_

Rain circled awkwardly, wishing she could reach him.  _“Please Sans, wake up. I know you have lost a lot in the past. I know you are haunted by all the things you failed to do. But if you can forgive me for all the things I have done, then you deserve to move on from all the things you_ didn’t  _do.”_

Papyrus knelt next to his brother, trying to touch him but failing.  _“I know you are afraid. We-we have lost a lot, haven’t we? Nyeh heh.”_ Papyrus lowered his eyes, thinking of a blurry face from days long past. “ _But we didn’t lose everything! And we have gained new friends over time. We have a new family now.”_

Sans laughed, his melancholy echoes bouncing against nothing.  _“i can’t even die right. hilarious.”_

Papyrus’s face fell.  _“Sans, please. You said there was a chance we could get a happy ending. But things don’t happen if you don’t try.”_ He tried to rest a hand on his shoulder again and this time he touched something solid.  _“We_ have  _to try.”_

The static began to fade away, revealing a trail of tears. Ever so slowly the light in Sans’s eyes returned. He looked up at his brother and realization slowly began to dawn on him.  _“Papyrus?”_

Papyrus smiled.  _“I’m still here. And I need my awesome very cool brother to help me. Ok?”_

Sans wiped away his tears and took a deep breath before nodding.  _“Yeah. Ok.”_

Rain stepped forward and explained things to Sans, her eyes already wandering off towards the next familiar spark of light. How much time did she have left in here? She could feel Chara struggling on the other end of the line.  _“Sans, you seem to know almost everyone in the Underground. I need you to go find everyone you know and wake them up. Save them. Tell them to help fight back by helping everyone they know remember too. Can you do that?”_

Sans drifted up a few feet into the air, seeming to catch on to the oddity of their location faster than the rest of them. He gave her a two finger salute and winked, shaking off the lingering emptiness he had felt to be dealt with later.  _“Got it.”_ He was gone in a flash, already somewhere else. Yet she could still feel the distant pull of his presence bobbing around somewhere in the sea of lost souls, calling out to the Underground.

She turned to Papyrus.  _“I need you to come with me. If I take too many hits in here I will die and something tells me you won’t be the only one to attack me.”_

Papyrus’s ghostly outline blushed in embarrassment.  _“I attacked you?”_

She took him by the wrist.  _“Yes. We can talk about that later. Now come on.”_

They shot off into the chaos, pushing through thousands of faceless souls until they reached another familiar spark. Two, actually.

Alphys’s panicked warble reached them first.  _“They will leave me if they know! Why does everyone leave me?”_

A second voice drifted in soon after.  _“Alphys, Papyrus, Asgore. My friends- why can’t I save you?”_

Rain spotted Alphys huddled off in the distance, trying to make herself look as small as possible while Undyne wandered aimlessly a few yards away. The moment she tried to approach Alphys, Undyne stiffened and spun around to face them- roaring in anger and sending several spears after them.

_“You! You are our real enemy!”_

Papyrus stepped in the way, his jaw locked in a resolute expression as he summoned his blaster and used its broad skull to shield them from the brunt of the attack.

_“Undyne! You’ve got to fight this! We are friends now, remember? We threw cereal at Sans and made bad soup together.”_ Rain called out.

Undyne spat at this notion, the static growing thicker around her face as she summoned another array of spears. Papyrus and Rain had to duck to avoid them.

Papyrus stood his ground, stance wide and hands held out in front of him as he guided his blaster around in the darkness. _“You go take care of Alphys. I think you know her better than I do. I will handle Undyne.”_

Rain hesitated then nodded in agreement, turning around and running off to meet Alphys. 

Undyne did not like this one bit. She bared her fangs and roared, summoning a spear in hand and taking off after her.

_“Undyne! Stop!”_ Papyrus commanded, raising up multiple rows of blue bones in front of her and eventually shutting her in from all sides. She cursed, stabbing at the bars with her spear, hesitating only when she heard Papyrus’s voice.

Ran danced around the stray sparks that circled Alphys in her forlorn state.  _“Alphys, wake up. I need you to come with me.”_

_“They don’t need me.”_ She scoffed.  _“We would all hurt less if I was…gone.”_

_“No. No that’s not true-ow!”_ One of the sparks struck her hand, making it go numb. She tiptoed around the rest and sat down next to her. She could hear Papyrus shouting at Undyne behind her.

_“Y-you hate me…don’t you?”_

Rain took a deep breath of nothingness and tried to keep her voice level despite what was going on behind her. Alphys needed her to stay calm.  _“Of course not. We have been through this before, Alphys. We need you to come back to us. You don’t need to run anymore. It’s over, remember? You came clean. The amalgamates were sent home, you told Undyne what you did, and your friends forgave you. You have nothing left you need to run from.”_

Papyrus shouted in alarm when Undyne broke free of his cage and smashed his blaster, tearing past him with a school of humming spears trailing after her. " _Rain, look out!”_

Alphys bowed her head. _“But I don’t deserve forgiveness. I-I’m not a good person.”_

Rain gently took Alphys by the hand. Her fingers didn’t quite pass through her and her form became more solid the longer she held on.  _“You know what makes a good person a good person, Alphys? When they do something bad, they own up to it. They try and make amends and they learn from it. You learned your lesson and it made you stronger. I forgive you, Alphys. We_ forgive _you.”_

The static began to dissipate.

_“Rain!”_ Papyrus shouted, a wall of bones shooting up behind her to try and block Undyne, who vaulted over it.

Alphys slowly rose to her feet and turned around, silently placing herself between Rain and Undyne.

Undyne stopped, the spears freezing in place behind her as she looked down at Alphys, stiff as a statue. The warrior’s voice drifted in over them in slow, sad murmurs.  _“This…This is why I never told you. This is what I was afraid of.”_ Undyne’s voice trembled in horror, tears streaming down her face.  _“The nightmares- they are **real**!”_

Alphys’s eyes became clear and the static vanished from around her head. She tentatively reached out and took Undyne’s hand. _“I-I know, Undyne. I know they are real. But- but maybe if we face them together…?”_

It was like a strong wind had chased away the fog around Undyne’s face. One moment it was there and the next it was gone.  _“Alphys?”_  She opened her good eye and recognition dawned on her as she became aware of her surroundings.  _“Wh…what? What is this place?”_

Alphys laughed and shrugged, turning back to Rain.  _“I-I don’t know. But I think Rain needs our help.”_

Papyrus jogged up alongside them and braced himself against his knees.  _“Phew! Well that was close! Nice to have you back, Undyne. You too, Alphys!”_

 Undyne rolled her shoulders.  _“Good to be back, I guess. Not that I know what I came back from.”_ She realized she was still holding Alphys hand and blushed.  _“Oh, um, sorry Alphys. I guess I should…let go now?”_

Alphys didn’t let go.  _“O-or you could not. You know, i-if you don’t want to?”_

Rain rolled her eyes.  _“I’m glad you two are finally having a moment-  truly it’s been long overdue and now I owe Sans a lot of money-_ _but it’s the end of the world so now is not really a good time. Alphys, Undyne, I need you to go find all the souls you know and help them remember so we can clear up all this static Asriel is hiding the human souls behind. It’s the only way we can fight back.”_ She briefed them on the rest of the situation and they got to work.

They found Toriel and Asgore next. Rain managed to coax Toriel out of hiding with mentions of pie, puns and the children that still needed saving. Undyne jogged Asgore’s memory with a punch to the jaw and a crushing suplex hug.

They split off to go find more souls to save.

Rain tugged on her barbwire lifeline to let Chara know she was ready to be pulled back. It was an unpleasant sensation; painful to say the least. Asriel did not want to loosen his grip on her but it was easier to find her way back now that the fog was dissipating. She could hear voices rising out of the void, calling out to each other, begging one another to remember.

The Underground was waking up.

Going back was like falling through a black curtain. Her awareness slammed back into Chara’s and the wispy outline of her body became more defined. She gasped like she had been starved for air, every atom of her being felt weak and blood red light dripped from countless tears in her outline. They couldn’t seem to catch their breath. The light of their soul seemed tattered around the edges; dim and frayed.

“Took you long enough.” Chara rasped, deflecting an attack with another large red knife she had willed into existence. Her words held the thick taste of blood even though their body was little more than an idea by now.

Above them the void was set ablaze by arcs of multicolored flames. Asriel had an entire galaxy of comets at his disposal. It was quite the upgrade from his little white pellets.

He called a handful down upon them but the assault was much slower now. Less accurate. His fur rippled and his body seemed to twitch in odd, bulging ways. Whatever he had done to root them in place had dissipated, allowing Chara to limp along at a hobbeled pace.

Asriel drew back his hand, baring his teeth as he looked at his lifeblood of souls rioting against him underneath his skin. “What did you do?”

“Do you think it was enough?” Rain whispered.

“I hope so.” Chara smirked, grim and dull. “If not then we will just have to get him the next time around.”

If the timeline could survive a “next time.”

If the surviving timeline Sans had seen wasn’t Flowey’s world.

“No! No! What did you do? What did you do!” Asriel reeled back, a thin mist seeping out from between the delicate threads of his fur and reaching out into the void. The monster souls were fighting back, turning his own limbs against him and trying to escape. “Stop it! Stop it all of you!” He tried to cull the rebellious souls but the ones still trapped inside of him came to the aid of their brethren and made the attacks go wide.

Asriel rounded on Rain, desperation flashing in his black eyes. An entire forest fire’s worth of flames roared down towards them. He needed to kill them before he lost too much control!

Something glimmered deep inside Asriel’s chest. A single, shining spark of bright green light pierced the inky darkness.

Green like newly unfurled leaves enjoying the first day of proper sunshine after winter had ended.

Green like the kite Rain had gotten for her best friend because he had said it was his favorite color.

Green like the soul of her best friend.

“Daniel.” She whispered, diving back towards the fray. “Daniel! Wake up!”

Chara grunted against the strain, holding onto her soul as she drove back towards the grasp of a god to find her long lost friend.

Daniel would lead her to the others. He had to. He had heard her. The other souls would too.

_“No.”_  She stopped short.  _“The others can’t wake up. No one knows them. Toriel has already tried and failed. Asriel won’t let go. They are trapped in his memory and as long as Asriel has power over the human souls, he can use their power to make the monsters forget again. And so long as the other souls turn back into fog, the other humans will not be able to hear your cries.”_

“Well what the hell do you expect us to do about that?” Chara grunted, dodging a stray fireball while Asriel reached out to try and snare Rain’s soul.

_“Wake_ him _up.”_

Rain backed down. Chara nearly froze in place. “But I don’t know Asriel. I can’t do that.”

_The other one can.”_

“What? Why? There is no way in hell I’m going in there! What, do you think that if we just have a good heart-to-heart he will be good again? Do you think that if the two soulless people in the room hug it out everything will be fine and we will all get a happy ending?”

“Would you rather go back to the beginning?” Rain challenged, sinking back into place.

Chara thought for a moment. “Shit.” The darkness of her soul began to reach out towards Asriel. It felt like Rain’s skin was peeling off.

The light of Daniel’s soul winked at her.  _“We will try and protect both of you. Hurry.”_  He vanished back into the storm, Chara’s darkness slithering close behind.

Rain was now charged with acting as the anchor. If she let go Chara would lose herself to the static and it would all be over so she endured a storm of hellfire that blotted out her view of Chara’s progress. It felt like ages before the hail of flames subsided but when they did, a second wave did not come.

Asriel reeled back and began to scream, clawing at his face. “Stop! Get away from me! Do you hear me? I’ll tear you apart!” Different colored lights began to twinkle deep inside his chest. The humans were trying to break free. “Don’t you understand? Don’t you know why I’m doing this?” He sobbed. Souls were seeping out of him like dust, still connected by thin tendrils of control but his sway over them was weakening. “It’s because your special, Chara. You’re the only one who understands me.”

The mountainous god began to shrink, his body sagging. If he had had proper legs he would be kneeling. His voice rolled across the darkness like thunder, sending tremors through Rain’s soul as he sank to the ground. “No… no you’re right. That’s not the only reason. I’m doing this because I care about you, Chara.”

The lights pulsed, brighter than before; singing with a power that was finally starting to wake up. Asriel clutched at his chest, grimacing. He was trying to fight it. The edge returned to his voice. “No. No you can’t! I’m not ready for this to end! I’m not ready to say goodbye yet!”

The countless souls spoke over one another, trying to reason with him.

_“Nobody ever is.”_

_“No one ever is.”_

_“It always hurts.”_

_“But we must let go.”_

“So p-please…” He begged, forcing himself to straighten. He drove his claws into his chest, pulling souls out and away from his own shriveled memory of existence; balling them up in his fist until their light began to boil. His cruel, desperate eyes locked onto Rain’s battered soul. “Stop this.” This was his last chance. “And let! Me! Win!”

He called down the full power of the souls upon her; the light roaring in every burning color of the rainbow, scorching her with a heat far worse than any hit from Sans’s blasters. She could not move fast enough to escape it. It ate away at everything around her, seeming to close in on her from all sides. Her soul shrieked against the pain as she struggled to hold on- unsure of how she was clinging to existence at all.

She felt herself being erased. She was  _dying_. Only this time Chara was not there to pull her back together. Even with the souls fighting against Asriel's commands they could not spare her completely.

She howled.

She cried.

She whispered the names she of those she had come to know and love,  her soul turning to aimless flecks of red dust.

She called out for help...

And  _everyone_  came.

The freed souls that had been bleeding from Asriel curled in towards her, trapping the little flecks of her red light in their white net, racing to try and knit them back together. She could hear them now. All of them. They whispered to her and pulled her back one little piece at a time while overhead all of existence burned.

She could feel them now.

All their love.

All their kindness.

All the fond thoughts they had had of her when she had thought herself alone. They whispered to her and begged her to hold on.

_“Fight this.”_

_“You are loved.”_

_“You are forgiven.”_

_“So stay with us.”_

_“Hold on a little longer.”_

She was no longer alone. She never had been.

She held on to Chara’s existence for as long as she could, burning away a little slower under the shield of souls. She chose to hold on simply because they asked her to.

She felt it when Chara finally reached him. The torrent of fire weakened, then stopped. The whole world seemed to  _click_ and for a brief moment, she saw Chara’s fondest memories projected out across the blackness.

The souls began to recede.

“Thank you.” She whispered, everything growing fuzzy. “Thank you.” She closed her eyes and began to fade away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! A fight that involves wishing, not being able to move, a lack of items to use and a void as a battleground is very difficult to translate from game to paper. @___@


	55. Somewhere Else

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere Else  
> *~*~*~*~*~*~*  
> Its time to wake up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright! here we go guys. Sorry for the delay- there was a pretty big emergency at home and i had to do damage control and rush to find a job to help with the bills. @_@ but things are starting to stabilize- I really wanted to at least get this to you for Christmas so i'm glad I had enough time to squeeze it all in!

His eyes fluttered open. He was greeted by an out of tune chorus of groans. He gasped for air. For a while there he had forgotten how to breathe. His arms strained to push him upright but a stabbing pain in his chest kept him lying on his back.

What had happened?

_Vines. Vines cutting the stone and wrapping around him until his bones creaked. The world around him screamed. It was over. It was all over. This was the end. The world was swallowed by the darkness._

_..A white light._

He tensed and forced himself upright despite the pain. It made him see stars. “Papyrus? Tori? Al?” He coughed, wincing. “Rain?”

Someone shuffled over to him before he could continue down the list. A soft, warm hand rested against his shoulder and helped keep him upright. Toriel’s voice was a soft as a feather and helped relive some of his mounting anxiety. “It is alright, my friend. Your brother is unharmed.”

He could hear them now; his friends were just a few yards away, responding in a haggard sound-off to let him know they were all ok.

“Are you hurt? That creature was not kind to you.”

He blinked up at her, trying to dispel the blur from his vision. “I’m good, yeah.” He tried to stand up and ended up having to lean on her. “-But he may have cracked a few ribs.” He added, grunting through his teeth.

“Let me see. I can heal you.” While Toriel eased him back down. His vision cleared enough for him to see the room around him. The stone was cracked and both doors had been blown off their hinges. The room was semi crowded with random monsters who had wandered in from the crowd outside and were now being rounded up and escorted back out of the room by a group of wobbly-kneed guards.

The room was buzzing with communication but the air felt empty, like there was too much space between their words.

While Toriel checked over his ribs, Papyrus came striding over with one hand rubbing his head. “Are you ok, Sans?”

“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine, bro.” He looked at the utter mess surrounding them. The king was listening to a report given by one of the guards while others worked to clean up a mess of twisted metal and frayed monitors that had once been Rain’s stretcher and one of Alphys’s machines.“What happened?” He wondered under his breath.

The question had not been meant for anyone in particular but Papyrus leapt at the chance to answer. “I don’t know! I just remember my friend Flowey: bursting into the room and doing some very not-nice things to everyone!” He scowled and put his hands on his hips. “Really, when I find him I am giving him _such_ a stern talking to!”

Toriel joined in. “So far everyone I have spoken to have all said the same thing. They remember the flower, and then a white light. After that it’s all foggy. There was this thick mist and a voice telling us to wake up.” She sent one last wave of warm magic rushing across his chest to chase away the last of the fractures before pulling his shirt back down and helping him get back on his feet. “Then we all simply…woke up.”

“Is everyone alright?” Sans rolled his shoulders and took a few tentative breaths to test out his friend’s work. He was good as new.

“Yes, I think so.” Papyrus rubbed at his neck. “Everyone seems kind of scattered and scatterbrained right now but so far we haven’t found anyone who needed help."

"No dust either.” Toriel promised. 

Sans spotted Undyne marching across the room with Alphys following at her heels. They stepped over the remains of the shattered door leading farther back into the castle and disappeared. A moment later he heard Undyne shouting.

“Ahh! Motherfuck!”

Toriel and Sans exchanged looks before following Undyne’s trail. When they caught up to her it was easy to see the reason for her distress. Seven shattered glass tubes lay scatted across the floor like eggshells; their contents long gone.

Undyne kicked one of the larger chunks of glass across the hall in frustration.  Alphys was trying to comfort her with a gentle touch to the shoulder. “I-its ok, Undyne. It’s... it’s not the end of the world. We will find another way. We are all ok, so at least there’s that.”

Toriel brought a hand up to her chest as she took it all in. “Oh my.” She sighed. “I had hoped… I had hoped that this was all about to be over.”

Sans shook his head. “None of this makes any sense.” He looked around again. “Where did the flower go? If he still has all the souls then shouldn’t we be dust?”

“Maybe he had a change of heart?” Papyrus offered. “That tantrum he had was all quite unlike the Flowey I know, after all!”

Sans made a disbelieving sound. “Wait a second.” He ran through the list of faces he had seen so far. "Papyrus, Toriel, Alphys, Asgore, Undyne..."  He spoke slowly, afraid of the question. “Where's Rain?”

Everyone fell silent, glancing between one another.

“Well surely she’s around here somewhere.” Papyrus assured.

“Last I saw, that flower had her.” Undyne growled.

“I-I don’t think I have seen her yet.”

“Perhaps she got lost in the crowd?”

The world searched for Rain. The Underground called out her name but no one answered. It was as if she had never existed at all.

What had happened while they had all blacked out? Had she fought Flowey in order to somehow assure their mutual destruction? Where was she? Where was the flower? Where were the souls?

Where were their memories?

Time hadn’t reset. Sans knew that much. Everyone still remembered the before and after, just not what had taken place in-between.

And the air still felt empty. Like there was too much space between everything.

Minuets scratched away into hours and the crowd was sent home. Mettaton’s TV channels were set abuzz with conspiracy theories and the Royal Guard spent the rest of their afternoon cleaning up the mess that had been left behind. Anyone who had known Rain lingered in the castle.They were still shell-shocked and confused by all of this.

Asgore went around handing out cups of tea, tugging at his ears now and then. He lumbered over to Sans’s perch, interrupting a meandering conversation he had been having with his brother. “Would either of you two like a cup of tea?”

“I would very much like a cup of tea- thank you!” Papyrus squeaked, stars in his eyes over being offered tea by the king.

“Sure.” Sans agreed with a shrug. He frowned when Asgore nodded and scratched at his ear again. “Something bugging you?”

Asgore smiled. “My apologies. I suppose that after all that has happened, it’s expected for one to feel rather off all of a sudden.”

Sans swirled his tea but didn’t drink it. “How so?”

“I don’t know how to describe it, actually.” He admitted with mild embarrassment, tugging at one of his ears again. “It’s almost like a ringing in my ears but somehow  _not_. Does that make any sense? ”

 Sans’s cocked his brow. “I s’pose so.”

“Hmmm. Yes, I suppose that is how I would describe the feeling too. But I don’t have ears.” Papyrus quipped.

“Well, it’s like that. But, well, the opposite. I think. I keep waiting to hear something but I don’t know what. And because it’s not there everything feels sort of…”

“Empty?” Both Sans and Papyrus offered at the same time.

Everyone exchanged startled looks. Sans set his cup down, eyes going wide as it dawned on him. “Has anyone checked the barrier yet?”

Asgore straightened and blinked. “Well, no. I don’t suppose anyone has. Not with all the confusion that’s taken place. Without the souls I did not think there would be any reason to check.”

Sans took his brother by the hand and Asgore by the edge of his cape. “Come on.”

The rest of their little group took quick notice of two of the tallest monsters they knew being led around by one of the shortest and soon fell in line behind them. No one asked questions. It seemed like suddenly everyone  knew where they were going once they set out on their path. There was a grim sort of silence that overtook them, everyone was holding their breath.

As they approached the barrier the silence got… _louder._ More obvious. There was a familiar hum that was missing. A thrum that every monster felt reverberating against their bones, against their very soul, from the minute they were born to the moment they turned to dust. It was like a distant warmth. A distant pressure. It was the heartbeat of their prison and they knew nothing of a world that existed without it.

And now, one by one, everyone was coming to realize it was missing.

The group came to a stop in front of the archway that Asgore had once hidden the souls under. The faint gray light of an aging day spilled out onto the floor, unfiltered by the humming sheen of magic they had always known. They looked out past the archway, down a long corridor of stone that eventually lead out into the wondrous, unfathomable open world outside of their mountain.

They stood in stunned silence for a long, long time.

It was gone? Just like that? They hadn’t even gotten to see it happen. They had practically gone to sleep imprisoned and woken up as free monsters.

Asgore was the first to move, his wide frame nearly blocking out the light. He could smell fresh air brought in by the gentle breeze. It rustled the golden fur of his beard and brought in the scent of wet earth. He ducked under the archway and took a few test steps out into the tunnel before looking back and nodding, inviting everyone to follow behind him.

Undyne hurried after him, a spear flickering in and out of existence as she all but stepped on his heels and tried to squeeze ahead of him to act as his guard and lookout. He chuckled at her attempts but did not let her pass. It was his duty to lead his people out. Not hers.

Alphys hardly waited half a second before she trailed after Undyne, pulling out her phone and tapping at the screen, curious to see if she could already accesses the human internet somehow.

Toriel spared Sans and Papyrus a solemn look before she ducked into the tunnel. Her eyes were distant but accepting. She said nothing.

“Well, this is it.” Sans sighed, watching his friends begin their climb to freedom. It all felt incredibly surreal. Were they still dreaming? After all the trouble they had gone through, was their answer really this easy? Fall asleep for a few minutes and wake up to the sound freedom? Just like that?

Sans displayed an enthusiastic smile and bumped his brother on the shoulder. “So uh, you ready to get out there and greet the sun, bro?”

Papyrus looked reluctant to go. He kept looking over his shoulder, waiting. Finally, in a quiet voice he echoed what everyone else had been wondering all this time. “Sans, has anyone found Rain yet? Shouldn’t we wait for her?”

His smile fell.

Seven. Seven human souls to break the barrier. Six. That’s how many they had collected before she had come to the castle.

The barrier had been broken.

Sans rubbed Papyrus’s arm, genuine regret painting his face. “I’m sorry, Paps. But whatever happened, I don’t think she’s coming back.”

Papyrus ducked his head and squeezed his eyes shut, rubbing away tears with a gloved hand. Sans did what he could to comfort him but it felt like a feeble, hollow attempt.

Undyne called back to them from the other end of the tunnel, urging them to come and see. Sans brushed her off. “Give us a minute will ya? We uh, we need a moment.”

Papyrus sniffed and took in a shaky breath before looking back up and shaking his head. “No.” He wiped away a tear with his glove. “No, we should go. We should be with our friends.”

“Are you sure you’re ok? Monsters have been trapped Underground for a thousand years. I think giving you ten more minuets wouldn’t hurt if you need it.” In a quieter voice he added, “I mean, I get it. I miss her too. We all do.”

Papyrus looked down at his brother and took a few more bracing breaths. “No, I’m  _not_  ok. I am very sad at the moment!” He looked down the tunnel like it was a battlefield. “But… but Rain told us to smile for her. She said that she wanted to see the sun but she would rather see us smile!” He put on the biggest smile he could muster, tears still glinting in the corners of his eye sockets. “And that is what I, the Great Papyrus and her closest friend, shall do!” Papyrus offered him his hand, resolute in his choice.

Sans took it and smiled too.; for his brother and for Rain. “You really were her best friend, you know.”

“Of course I was.” He huffed, setting off down the tunnel. “I was the greatest!”

The light at the end grew brighter and brighter as they climbed and little trickles of water ran down the stones. Up ahead there was a soft, constant splattering sound that got louder the farther along they progressed. The two skeletons hesitated when they reached the end of the tunnel. They stood at the threshold of stone that separated the Unground from the vast open world that stretched out beyond the mountain and looked out into the open.

They stepped out into the open world together.

Their friends were waiting for them, huddled together and overlooking the forest down below. Above them the sky was gray with clouds and an endless stream of water fell from the sky, peppering their heads.

Undyne turned around to greet them, a massive grin showing every tooth she had as she reveled in the storm. “It’s about time! I knew Sans was slow but I didn’t think  _you_  would drag your feet, Papyrus!” She stretched her arms up to the sky and took in a deep breath. “Isn’t this great? You can smell the rain! It’s so nice and fresh up here!”

A flash of light darted across the sky and a few second later a distant rumble rolled past them. Papyrus flinched, squawking in surprise. Then he inched a little closer to the ledge in fascination when nothing attacked him. “Was that thunder? Sans, is this a thunder storm?” Papyrus gasped, mouth hanging open and water droplets falling into his sockets.

“I guess it is.” Sans agreed in reverent wonder.

“It’s raining. Sans, this is  _real_ rain.” Papyrus whispered. The conversations that had been buzzing between their friends ground to a halt as everyone was brought back down to earth by the painful reminder that they had paid for this rain with a Rain of a different sort. Papyrus inched a little closer to his brother, hands clasped tentatively against his chest. “Does that mean… does that mean that  _this_  is the Somewhere Else? Did we finally find it?”

Everyone looked out at the storm in reverence. “You know what bro? I think your right.” Sans replied, looking out at the vast, rain-touched world. “I think we finally found it.”

***

She didn’t want to wake up. She didn’t plan to. She was comfortable at first. To be honest, burying herself deeper inside the darkness sounded nice. But over time she became more aware of the uneven feel of her soft bed.

It was warm. Almost uncomfortably so. It rocked in a way that made every third jolt send a twinge down her neck and bring too much attention to something sharp digging into her leg. She squirmed in place and made a displeased sound that turned into a dry rasp. Her throat was sore and her words got stuck on their way out.

The rocking stopped and her body began to descend.

_Falling._

_Falling._

_Pain._

The smell of yellow flowers.

She jerked awake, eyes flying open in fear. "No! No not another one!"

“Sorry! Sorry! I wasn’t expecting that.” A vaguely familiar voice amended. A tall shape was leaning over her, clawed hands brushing up against her in an attempt to help her sit upright. Her eyes were rolling around in her head like dice, bouncing around and turning everything into an unassuming blur. “Just… um, calm down, ok? You may have hit your head.”

Rain backed up, things coming into focus at last. All around her the world was bathed in shadow, unlit stone walls pressing in around her. She was sitting in a bed of golden flowers that stained her clothes yellow. The only source of light in the room came from the figure standing in front of her, stooped over in his attempts to help: Asriel.

Rain let out a surprised squawk, kicking out at him with a poorly aimed foot. He jerked back and her sneaker came flying off and smacked him square in the nose.

White sparks shot out of his fur and scattered in the air around him, fluttering away like butterflies. He crouched down next to her, rubbing his nose. “Ok. I guess I deserved that.”

Rain curled in on herself. “What the hell is going on?” She demanded, a stray hand feeling around for a weapon she had never actually had.

Asriel scratched at the back of his neck and laughed sheepishly. The whole display seemed unnatural after everything she had seen him do. It sent a shiver down her spine.

Thankfully he was no longer the size of Ebott itself and he had proper legs again, which made him look a little less threatening but he was still an intimidating sight to wake up to. He still looked like he had about a foot’s worth of height over her and his features were marked with black tear trails and twisted horns. His eyes remained oddly black.

“It’s ok. It’s ok. Sorry. I’m not going to hurt you.” He assured in a voice that was too young to fit his body. He bowed his head, long ears swaying forward. As he settled down next to her, more flowers sprang up around them.

Rain gave the plants and odd look.

Asriel noticed her gawking and plucked one of the blooms to hold between his claws. “I know, pretty weird, right?” He frowned at the flower. “I can’t figure out how to stop that from happening. Hope no one noticed the trail.”

“What…  _happened_?” She repeated, starting to reclaim command of her voice. Each word still felt slow and sandy in her mouth. Her body was tense with caution. “The last thing I remember, you were a legless pointy mountain of OC style destruction and you were burning me to death with goddamn rainbows.” She massaged her temple. She had a splitting headache. “Then everything went dark and now you aren’t acting like an asshole anymore? And you have legs again? Please…explain…the legs.”

He blushed under his fur and ducked his head. “Sorry.”

Rain pushed herself up on wobbly knees. “You keep saying that but I’m not exactly sure what you are sorry for and that’s really fucking terrifying because you were eating timelines.”

“Please don’t leave.” He begged, jumping to his feet and holding out his hands like someone trying to calm a frightened animal. Several more white lights escaped from his fur and streaked out of the tunnel like wandering fireworks; whistling and singing with joy before flying out of view. “Everything is ok now. I promise.” He gave her a little smile and for a brief moment his form flickered like static and he was a little kid again. “I fixed it. I fixed everything. All of your friends are safe, ok? They all woke up in the castle with no memory of our fight.”

Rain relaxed. But only a little bit. “All of them? They are all ok?”

“Yep.”

She hesitated a little, afraid to keep asking questions in case the answers were not one she wanted to hear. “And all of my progress? The timeline I was trying to save?”

The corners of his eyes crinkled with admiration. More white sparks burst forth from his fur and scattered. “You saved it.” Something that had been hiding deep within his chest shot out into the dark; it was a purple light larger than all the fluttering white ones. It took off like a shooting star, its streaking outline almost heart shaped. Children’s laughter echoed through the chamber before it vanished.

Asriel’s form flickered again, this time taking longer to recover. He ran a hand over his chest where the soul had been and watched the light go. For a moment something cold and solemn overtook him.

Rain’s eyes widened and she gripped his arm. That had been a human soul. That had been a human soul and he had just let it  _go_. “The barrier! Asriel you can’t just let them go like that! It’s not fair. It’s not fair to the monsters, it’s not fair to the next person who falls down here and it’s not fair to me!”

He pulled away a little. “It’s ok. Rain, it’s ok. You won.” He tilted his head a little. His horns glinted in the light of another scattering burst of monster souls. “Don’t you remember? I promised that if you beat me I would give you a happy ending. Well, you beat me.  So I kept my promise.”

He gestured with a clawed hand to the ceiling looming only a few feet above them but his eyes were imagining something distant and out of sight. “I used the six human souls and the combined power of all the monster souls in the Underground to break the barrier. They are free now.” He rested a hand on her shoulder, the weight causing her to take a half step closer. “You saved them, Rain.”

She blinked in surprise, falling silent. She had? They were free? They were safe?

“Well then why aren’t I with them? Where did they all go? They wouldn’t have just left me here, wherever  _here_ happens to be."

The soft edges of Asriel’s smile faltered and he turned away from the direction they had come. “Its best if we leave them to their happy ending.” He gently took her by the hand and began to lead her away, head bowed. A dangerous gleam caught his eye and for a brief moment his voice was cold again. “It’s best if they forget about us. After all, creatures like us never do get our storybook endings. We don’t deserve them in the end.”

Rain pulled her hand free. “What do you mean?”

His hand strayed to his chest. Even as he spoke he seemed sorely tempted to go against his words. “I can’t keep holding all of these souls inside of me. It’s not right. The monsters need to go home and the humans need to be given a chance to find peace.” He looked down at his hands, enjoying his physical existence. Enjoying the sensations of having fur and fingers and warmth again. “But without them I won’t be able to maintain this form. I still don’t have a soul of my own so once they are gone I will turn into a flower again. A  _soulless_  flower.”

“Oh. Asriel, I’m so sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s ok. Like I said, some people don’t get happy endings. And, well, I am happy to pay the price. I did some pretty gross stuff in the past. I hurt you. I hurt everyone. This is my chance to make things right.”

Something cold pricked at her. A growing awareness of what he was dancing around. “Asriel, why did you take me away from my friends? Why bring me here? Why take me with you?”

He lowered his eyes; lips pressed into a fine line as he waved his hand and brought her soul out into view. “You know why.” He whispered, looking away as she was left to glimpse at the dark veins of corruption still embedded in her existence before her soul faded back out of sight.

She had been too afraid to look on her own. She had been too afraid to pry. She had been hoping that if she didn’t look then she could live in ignorant bliss. But now that she saw it she could reach out and feel it. She could feel Chara still resting inside of her; curled up and exhausted but still cold and dark.

She suddenly felt incredibly weak. It felt like someone had  thrown a hundred pounds of bricks on her back and kicked her in the back of the knees. She crumbled, falling to the floor once more. Asriel lingered in front of her for a few seconds before he knelt back down next to her. Souls fluttered around them and impossible flowers sprang up from the stone yet the world felt bleak and empty to her. It felt like all the color and magic had been sucked out of it.

“I am sorry, Rain.”

She gulped. “So that’s it. She’s still there.”

“I couldn’t just let her… you know. I know now that she wasn’t the greatest person but she was still my sister.” He picked at the nearby flowers, letting the plucked petals stir in the wake of escaping souls. “She had to remember things she didn’t want to in order to save me. I’m not sure how you got her to do it but if she still remembers those things then maybe-”

Rain slammed her fist against the ground so hard it hurt. “You don’t understand!” She sobbed, covering her face with her free hand. “She doesn’t  _want_  to get better. She capable of it. She’s always been capable of it. I have tried so hard to get her to do it. But she doesn’t  _want_  to! She wants to stop feeling altogether.

“That’s why I was ready to die, Asriel. I didn’t want to have to deal with this anymore! I didn’t want to have to keep suffering! I didn’t want to live the rest of my life afraid to fall asleep because I would always be one slip-up away from resetting the timeline and murdering everyone I cared about!” She curled in on herself. She felt Asriel’s warm hand on her back as she cried. “I was so close. I was so damn close to fixing it. But if she’s still here then it’s only a matter of time before she takes it all away again. Everything you did, everything I did- it will all be for nothing!”

Asriel pulled her into a hug and she buried her face in his shoulder. “I’m sorry it has to be this way. But I couldn’t do it. She was my best friend. She is my _sister_. She didn’t give up on me in the end so I’m not ready to give up on her.”

“I have had to let go of people, Asriel. I have had to accept that I would never see my friends again. I had to forgive people for killing the boy I thought I would marry. I was ready to give up my life in order to keep the timeline safe. Sometimes you have to let go of the things you want most because they are no longer safe or practical to wish for. How could you be so selfish?” She sobbed.

He didn’t rise to fight her anger with his own. Instead he kept his voice soft. “I’ll do my best to look after you. I will take us both somewhere far underground where no one will find us. We can keep each other out of trouble.”

She gripped the folds of his robe between her fingers. “Asriel, please, take my soul. You may still be strong enough to separate us. You can’t let her wake up again!”

He shook his head. “Without all six souls I don’t have enough power to separate you two.”

“Well then go back to a save point where you had more souls! I won’t fight you this time. Reload your last file. You still have control of the timeline for a little longer, don’t you? Reload!”

“I can’t reload to a save where I had more souls than I have right now because it would require more power than I currently have in order to access it. My levels of Determination don’t match up with those files anymore.” He explained, calm and patient. He took a deep breath and hugged her a little tighter as she crumbled in defeat. “It’s ok to be scared. I’m scared too. I’m not sure how much time I have left.” As if to drive this point home a bright yellow soul escaped from his chest and danced out of reach. They watched it fly by, jealous of its freedom. “Well, I guess that gives me some idea. One soul left now.” He breathed. The last of the monster souls were trickling out now. They were sparse bursts of sparks that raced away to find their home. “I want to thank you for everything you have done, Rain. I know I don’t deserve forgiveness for all the things I have done but I want you to know just how-”

“Don’t.” She mumbled, pulling away and drawing her knees up against her chest. “I get it. That stuff was done by a broken part of you and that part of you meant what you did. But you are more like yourself now and you would take it all back if you could. You are trying to make up for it. I have been in the same boat. Besides, I’m too busy being mad over the stupid stunts you pulled as  _Asriel_  to bother complaining about  _Flowey_. You are sticking me with a goddamn demon again.” She wiped at her eyes, frustrated.

“She seemed to work well with you back there, though.” He offered, entirely too hopeful. “Maybe she will get better.”

“Or maybe I will get worse.” She countered, voice hallow. “I only have to slip up once throughout the rest of my life to destroy all of this.”

Asriel fell silent. They sat side by side and watched the rest of the souls leave. A forlorn sort of worn our silence dragged on between them until the tunnel had fallen into near darkness as the light of souls dissipated.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad, being a flower again.” Asriel mused. “Maybe I will remember how to show compassion this time. Maybe Chara will be tired enough to let everyone go.”

She spoke over the top of her knees, her hair a red curtain. When had it gotten so red? “As long as she has control of the timeline she won’t rest. Once you lose enough souls she will be in control again. We will be immortal and she will be able to be as reckless as she wants without consequence. I can’t keep fighting her forever.”

A green light flashed inside Asriel’s chest. The light freed itself from his fur, spitting sparks and mist as it drifted into the air.

Rain watched the soul with a bittersweet sigh. Ah, there he was. Her soul. Her friend. Her fond memory form a life some scared little girl had once lived before she had died and became a stranger in her own skin.

“Goodbye, Daniel.” She whispered.

Asriel looked up at the soul, its light reflected in his eyes as it did a wide arc around the room. But instead of speeding up and escaping as the others had, it seemed to slow down. Then stop. It hung in the air for an unusually long time and pulsed bright hues of green.

Asriel slowly rose to his feet. “Really?” He breathed, mouth falling open. “You mean it? Are you- are you sure?” He took a hesitant step forward and reached out to the glowing soul, lips quivering.

The soul pulsed again. Even brighter than before as it fell back towards its captor.

“Thank you.” Asriel all but sobbed.

Rain sat up a little straighter. “What’s going on? What did he say?”

The soul let Asriel cup it in his hands and bring it back to his chest. It sank back inside of him with a warm green glow. 

“Daniel?” Rain rushed over to him as Asriel opened his eyes. His voice was no longer childish when he spoke but it was not quite the familiar voice of the Hyper God, either. It was too soft. Too kind. 

“Daniel?” She echoed.

“Hello, my little Song Bird.” He wiped the tears from her eyes with a gentle hand and smiled the lopsided smile she had once known so well. “I am so, so proud of you. You have done so much for us. You always were willing to do whatever it took to get things done the right way.” He mused. “But this isn’t like one of our old games. You don’t achieve peace or happiness by reaching the end of a single objective. Life doesn’t have a finish line that you can cross.” He pulled her into a hug. There was a deep ache in his voice. “You overcame your fears and were willing to die to give us a happy ending. But now it’s time for you to stop being afraid to  _live_  for yours.”

***

The storm had cleared by the time the Underground finished waking up. The Royal Guard was running in circles trying to keep everyone organized once news of the barrier began to spread. The castle was locked down pretty tight against the flood of monsters straining to get their first look outside. It wouldn’t do to have several thousand monsters flood the nearest human towns all at once. Asgore would have to send out ambassadors and messengers first to keep the humans from panicking.

It came as little surprise that among the first individuals willing to go extend a hand to the world that had forgotten them was the band of friends the Rain had left behind. They felt it only fitting to carry on in her memory.

They were nearly ready to depart by the time the sun began to set. They should have waited for morning but everyone was too excited. They wouldn’t go knocking on doors in the middle of the night or anything but they sure as hell had come up with enough excuses to justify camping out in the open until morning.

They packed up their supplies and met out on the cliff side once more, staring off into the orange and gold of their first sunset together. They were ready to bring this bittersweet chapter to a close.

“It’s finally happening.” Toriel remarked in reverent bliss. “It still feels like a dream to me.”

Asgore took a deep breath of fresh air and sighed. “To be honest, I never thought I would see this day. I never thought I would see the sun again.”

“And yet somehow, today, you get to see two.”

Everyone spun around at the sound of the familiar voice. Eleven wide eyes turned back towards the mountain and settled upon a familiar but impossible sight nestled in the shadows of the tunnel.

Asriel scowled at Rain, letting her take the lead. “Was that pun really necessary?” He asked through the side of his mouth.

Rain smirked. “I saw an opportunity and I took it.”

Everyone stood stock still in varying levels of confusion and shock.

Everyone except Papyrus.

“Rain!” He shouted, jumping forward so fast that it was like the laws of gravity had decided to look the other way in his moment of joy. He scooped her up and spun her around in a rib-crushing hug that kept her from sucking in enough air to answer the torrent of questions that followed on his heels.

Alphys’s hands went up to her mouth. “Oh my god?” She gasped.

“How?” Undyne wondered aloud, eye narrowed and mouth hanging open. “How is this even  _possible_? What the heck are humans even  _made out of_!”

“She’s got me stumped.” Sans admitted, giving her a deer in the headlights look.

Toriel kept looking between her and Asriel, eyes lingering on his face while her mind struggled to understand why this monster seemed so familiar. “But… the barrier. How? It needed seven souls to be broken.”

The questions kept coming.

How?

Why?

Where had she gone?

What had happened?

Why had she disappeared?

Who was the new guy?

Questions piled on top of each other in rapid succession until it all became blurred chatter.

When Undyne finally managed to pry Papyrus from her long enough to allow her a breath of air she rubbed her bruised ribs and gestured to Asriel, who had never quite emerged from the shadows and had shrunk farther and farther back with each passing second as fear prodded at him. “Hey, I see you trying to sneak back into the mountain. Get out here and say hello to your parents!” Rain commanded.

Toriel and Asgore’s face went slack in confusion. “What?”

Rain cleared her throat. “Toriel, Asgore, may I present to you the Angle of Death, savior of the Underground and heir to the throne- Asriel Dreemurr: former God of Hyper Death.”

Asgore frowned. “This joke is in rather poor taste, my friend.”

Toriel sent both Rain and Asriel a deadly glare of daggers, daring them to mock her dead child like that again. She glared as Asriel, waiting for him to come clean and back down from this claim.

Asriel grimaced, tugging at his ears and tucking his chin against his chest. “Jeez Rain, you couldn’t have been a little gentler with that?”

She looked him dead in the eye, channeling all of her “I’m so done with this day” vibes into her stare. “You went talking, so no.”

“I don’t understand. This is not a very kind joke, Rain.” Toriel warned.

“It’s not a joke. I can’t save Chara. Only she can do that for herself. But Asriel as it turns out, was a different case. I have had quite a few run-ins with him over the years. I didn’t want to tell you because it would have put you in danger at the time, but Asriel has been alive all this time too. He was stuck as a soulless flower. But when he absorbed all of the human souls it healed him. And after everything humans have taken from you, we can at least give you your son back.” She gestured to Asriel. “My friend Daniel, the sixth human soul, has agreed to stay with Asriel and help him maintain his physical form.”

Toriel took a few shaky steps forward like she was testing to see if a sheet of ice could hold her weight without cracking. “Asriel? Is it really…?” She hesitated at first, waiting to be told that she was mistaken. But when no one told her otherwise she reached out and cupped her son’s face in her hands. He was tall enough that she had to look up into his eyes. “My son is dead.” Her voice shook. “Tell me my son is dead. Because if you say otherwise, I will believe you.” She rasped. “I am so tired of hoping for a happy ending and having to bury children instead so please… tell me the truth.”

His lips quivered, voice cracking. “I’m sorry mom. I wish I could have come to you sooner but I couldn’t. I know you don’t remember it but I hurt you. I did so many bad things as a flower. And I left you. I left you alone to think I was dead. I’m so sorry. And-and if you don’t ever want to see me again I-”

She embraced him, smothering his sorrows. “It  _is_  you!” She cried. “Oh my god. My little Asriel! My little boy. You’re home!  _You’re home_!”

“Asriel?” Asgore echoed, the words finally sinking in for him, causing him to break from his statue-like state. Up until now he had been afraid to move. Afraid that if he so much as twitched the dream would shatter or he would simply fall apart at the memory of his lost son. But he wasn’t waking up. The world felt real. The dream he had dreamed for so many years now felt real enough to reach out and touch.

Asgore pitched forward, eyes rolling back. Undyne had to rush over and catch him before he fainted. “Woah there big guy! Its ok, I got you. Deep breaths buddy.” She spared Rain an annoyed look. “Jeez human you sure know how to drop bombshells. Maybe next time wait until our king isn’t standing on the edge of a cliff before making him faint, ok?”

Rain’s face went a little red. “My bad.”

“Damn right it’s your bad! But since you apparently brought someone back from the dead and broke the barrier I will let this one go!” She grunted from under the mountain of royal fur she was holding up and dragging around like a cape until she found a safe place to drop him.

One by one the group of monsters moved in to join Toriel, sparing Rain approving looks over their shoulder as they went to greet the lost prince.

Rain nodded back to them, looking a little more tired than usual.

Sans hung back with her, saying nothing about the reunion but watching everything with eyes that overlooked nothing. Eventually he pulled a hand from his pocket and jerked a thumb at the precarious winding path that lead down the side of the mountain. “Welp, I kind of feel like a third wheel here so I’m going to go check out all the cool rocks and stuff humanity has been hogging for the past thousand years. Care to join me?”

Rain gave him a tired smile and bobbed her head. The last rays of the setting sun causing her red hair to shine like embers. “Sure.” She took a deep breath and took her first step down the mountain she had thought she would never return from. “Here we go.”

***

The last hues of pink and orange had vanished from the sky by the time they reached the bottom of the mountain. They had taken their time coming down, Rain stopping to let her friends marvel at things she had stopped thinking of as noteworthy as a child.

A stream took Undyne’s breath away when she saw the sunlight glinting off of it like fire and diamonds. They had tried to physically move her after she spent a good fifteen minutes staring at it but she shrugged them off without blinking. She didn’t budge until the ray of sunlight had been consumed in shadow and the glittering reflection had vanished.

Alphys reached a note four times higher than anything Rain had ever heard from her when she checked her phone and squealed. She jumped up and down in circles and nearly tripped over a rock in her excitement. Sans had to snag her by the back of the shirt and pull her back in order to save her from falling as she screamed: “Bar! I got a bar! Oh- it’s gone. No! Wait! Its back! Oh my god its back!”

“Come on Alphys. We will get better reception when we get to wherever Rain is taking us.” Undyne grunted, scooping up her excited friend and carrying her off.

Toriel found several bugs along the way and pulled out a small notepad so she could take notes on all the new ones she found. She often told stories about the familiar ones that she had not seen since being locked away underground.

Asgore wandered off like a stray sheep on more than one occasion whenever a new plant caught his eye. Everyone had to take turns reigning him back in. By the time they reached their first dirt road all of his pockets were full of seeds and flowers and he was using his cape to carry a collection of pods.

And Papyrus was, well, Papyrus. He was awestruck by everything and declared his admiration for said things loud enough to scare all the birds away.

Asriel was quiet for the most part. Occasionally drifting back to talk to his parents but otherwise spending most of his time at the head of the group with Rain.

They continued on into the dark, the Dreemurr family lighting their way with tongues of flame as they wandered past Rain’s old home- where the lights were still on.

Rain paused near the bottom of the winding road that lead up to her house. Asriel and Daniel paused beside her. “Do you want to go back to them?” Daniel asked.

Rain shook her head. “No.”

He nodded. “Good.”

They carried on past the burnt down husk of a house that rested by the roadside. Chara stirred and began to wake up as they passed; disoriented by the situation she woke up to. She remained relatively quiet. She was still drained and every whips of her existence felt sore.

At last they came to Daniel’s old house. Its windows were dark and the driveway empty. A tall pile of wood stood off to the side.

“Wowwie! One of you guys used to live here? This house is even bigger than my house!”

“Yeah. It was just me and my mom and dad.” Daniel explained, leading the way up to the porch. He seemed rather solemn.

Rain dug around in the wood pile for the hidden spare key she knew was always hidden there and unlocked the door. It swung open with a creak. She touched Daniel’s shoulder, concern painted across her face. “Are you going to be ok?”

He gave her a curt nod. “I always knew they were gone. I figured they hadn’t survived the accident but… it feels weird knowing they are not here anymore.”

She rubbed his arm. “I miss them too.”

She waited for Daniel to take the first step inside. Everyone else followed with a flurry of compliments about the space and furnishing. Rain went out back to fire up the generator, giving the house light.

The house was alive with chatter that night. The air was filled with laughter, hoots and hollers as everyone joked and gushed with excitement. Toriel tried to turn the topic over to their plans for humans and monster but everyone was too excited to listen. Asgore flashed her an apologetic smile before melting into the chaos along with the rest of the excited monsters.

Alphys somehow managed to worm her way onto the internet and wept tears of joy when she found Mew Mew Kissy Cutie three.

Papyrus sampled everything in the pantry with mounting levels of frustration when it fell right through his jaw. Toriel and Undyne had to help him pour enough magic into the food for it to become edible. Once they did he made horrible burnt snacks for everyone to eat that night while they crowded around a laptop Alphys had stubbornly insisted on bringing with her and watched anime.

During a romantic scene in the movie everyone’s attention turned to Alphys and Undyne, who had been stealthily inching closer and closer together all night. Their secret discovered, the house erupted into a chant of “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” Until Undyne finally jumped up from her seat and dipped Alphys like a dancer and kissed her like she meant it.

Alphys turned orange. Undyne was blushing purple and everyone hooted and hollered loud enough to make the windows shake among the shouts of “It’s about time!” and “finally!”

Rain and Sans exchanged money in the background.

Eventually the noise became a little too much for Rain and she slipped outside and retreated to an old fire pit in the back yard where she sat in the dark for a while, enjoying the sounds of the night. She had forgotten about those sounds.

Chara’s consciousness sat silently next to her own and listened.

Fifteen minutes in and she saw Asriel’s tall silhouette slip from the house and stalk out to meet her. He plucked several choice logs from the wood pile and tilted his head to a rock across from her own. “Mind if I join you?” He asked.

She nodded.

He smiled and dropped the logs into the pit and set them alight with a flick of his wrist. Soon bright orange tongues of flame licked through the logs and sent up a cloud of pine-scented smoke. “Well, everyone seems to be settling in alright. It was nice of Daniel to let everyone stay here.” Asriel sighed and looked up at the sky. “It’s nice to be outside again. I didn’t get to be out here very long when I was with Chara but I did get to look at the stars. I still can’t believe how many of them there are.”

Rain looked up at the sky too. She had nearly forgotten about the stars and seeing them now brought on a whole new wave of emotion.

She had made it. They had finally made it.

“So, how is Chara? Is she treating you ok?”

Rain waited to see if Chara would jump at the chance to say something but when she didn’t she thumped her chest and nodded. “She’s behaving. For now. She’s still tired. Probably a little jealous that you upstaged us both on the whole prophecy front.”

Asriel picked at his robe. “Um, Rain,” His voice shifted just a hair as Daniel stepped forward. “We need to talk about some stuff.”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Yeah. I know. I knew this was coming.”

“You know I love you. We were best friends growing up. And, well, if things had been different maybe we would have been something more than friends. But as things are now-”

“I know. That was a long time ago, Dan. No hard feelings, ok?” She interjected, keeping her voice a little too light and brisk. “It was a nice thought when we had it but I think that time has passed.” She flicked a few twigs into the fire. “Besides, I’m probably like, twenty seven now or something and I have no idea how old you are supposed to be, but I’m pretty sure Asriel is still technically a kid  _and_ my demon’s adopted brother- so no offence but I think I’ll pass. Never was a fan of the ‘it’s complicated’ status.”

They tried to laugh at themselves but it came out as more of a tired wheeze and a sigh. He was relieved that she was taking things so well but it still hurt. “I guess our situation is pretty weird now, isn’t it?”

“Daniel,my  life has been drugs-and-Muppets levels of crazy for the past few years. At this point I don’t think I’d know what normal was if it came up and bit me in the ass with its mediocre, white suburban teeth.” She chuckled.

He flashed her a smile that didn’t quite reach all the way back. The firelight danced in his eyes as he chewed on his next set of words carefully. “I know you won’t like to hear this, but it would be safer for everyone if we keep our distance once things settle down. In case Chara tries to pull something.”

Ah. Now that one did hurt. It took her a while to compose herself enough to answer him. “You’re probably right.” She admitted in defeat, ducking her head. She couldn’t think of much else to say besides that.

His voice changed again and Asriel tugged on his ears. “I mean, we can still be friends online or something. But you should probably stay away from me and the Dreemurrs from now on. If you can help it. I know that’s a hard thing to tell you to do, but…” He trailed off.

Rain took a deep breath. “I’ll manage. I knew I wasn’t above consequences. I guess this is one of them. I would have liked to get to know you guys better but you’re right. Let’s keep the temptation out of Chara’s sight and out of mind. I’m just glad everyone is still alive.” She shook her head. “I’m glad that just this once, everybody gets to live.”

“Yeah. Just this once.” Asriel echoed, feeding random bits of bark to the flame.

Silence stretched out between them. They had nothing left to really say. Asriel and Daniel stayed out to watch the stars for a little longer before getting up, dusting themselves off. “Well, I’m going to go see if their movie is done. I don’t think anyone has thought to look up at the stars yet so when it’s done I think I will bring them all out here so we can sleep under the sky.”

“That sounds nice.”

Asriel looked back towards the house and got up to go. Laughter could still be heard coming from inside. Laughter, then the sound of someone dropping something made of glass.

Rain distinctly made out Papyrus’s high-pitched voice shouting: “Mother fuck!” half a second later, followed by everyone in the room demanding to know who had taught him to say  _that_  and Undyne loudly pleading her innocence.

Rain was mid laughter when Chara chose to break her silence and step up front. “Asriel.” She barked.

He tilted his head, now a few steps away. “Yes?”

“I only did it to save myself. I helped save this world because I had to, not because I wanted to. So I’m warning you now: don’t get any ideas.”

Asriel smiled a sad, knowing smile. “Yes, I know you think that. You said as much to me back then.”

Chara shook her head ad scuffed the ground, somewhat stuck in a cloud of disbelief. “You were pulling apart the void. You had the power to destroy everything, to erase everything-  I wanted that power. I  _still_ want that power.”

“And yet I threw it all away because you asked me to.”

“I asked you to throw it away because as I am now I would not have survived the void when time broke. I did not do it to save you, I did it to save  _me_.”

Asriel rubbed his arm awkwardly and looked away. “I know you did, Chara. But I hope that someday you will be happy with your choice. Not because it allowed you to live, but because it allowed you the chance to be happy. Besides, you have nowhere left to go but up if you ask me.” He turned to leave again. “The burden of the timeline is no longer yours.”

Chara watched him go with a quiet sense of brooding.

As Asriel slipped back inside, Sans slipped out. He strolled across the grass and plopped down in the seat Asriel had vacated. He watched her with one eye closed. “Heya. Did you chase the last guy off so you could be alone, or is it alright if I crash out here for a while?” He looked over his shoulder, watching the silhouette of their rambunctious friends back inside. “It’s getting pretty crazy in there.”

“Nah you can stay. I needed someplace quiet to retreat to, too.” She began to prod at the flames with a stick, enjoying a comfortable silence for several minutes before she bothered to come up with a topic of conversation. “So, you took a pretty nasty hit in the throne room, didn’t you?”

He watched her through half lidded eyes. “Maybe.”

“I’d say Asriel smacked you pretty hard. If I didn’t know any better I would say he even shaved a few hit points off of you.” She gave him a knowing smirk, proud to be in on his little secret. “But seeing as you’re still here, I guess that means you don’t have only one hit point anymore, do you?”

“Hmm so that’s what you think now, huh?” He grinned at her but didn’t admit to anything.

She shook her head. “Always so tight lipped.” She mused.

“You know it.” He said with a wink before clearing his throat and turning to more serious topics. “So,” He leaned forward, arms resting against his knees as he watched the commotion taking place on the other side of the kitchen window. “This Asriel kid- do you trust him?” He tried to keep his voice casual but she could sense the tension in the back of his words. His teeth were set firmly against each other.

“Asriel is as soft-hearted as Papyrus. And I trust Daniel with my life.”

Sans huffed, not entirely convinced. “Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”

“Then why bother asking?”

He shrugged. “So, uh, I hate to ask because either way I’m afraid of the answer, but who uh, who has control of the timeline now?”

She nodded back towards the house. “He does. Daniel’s Determination seems to be enough to push Asriel past me on that front. Thank god.”

Sans sucked in a tight breath. “Ah. Ok. Great.”

“It’s better this way, Sans.”

“Maybe. But that flower wrought just as much havoc as you did and I only ever met Daniel once. So forgive me if I don’t rest easy knowing my timeline is being bounced back and forth between you two like a ping-pong ball. You may be ready to forgive him and let things be all hunky-dory but I dunno. Not really ready to believe this is all permanent yet.”

“He won’t reset.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugged. “Well, I have known Daniel all of my life and Chara knew Asriel well enough for me to know him fairly well now too. They are both good people. Besides, I think you are overlooking something here.”

“Hmm yeah? And what would that be?”

“That this is  _his_  happy ending too.”

Sans blinked in surprised and looked back through the window. Asriel was sitting on the kitchen counter, horns nearly touching the ceiling and his legs swinging back and forth as he talked with his parents. 

“Huh.” He grunted. “ Guess I hadn’t considered that. Guess I am still thinking of him as Flowey and not the prince. But I guess if you and Chara can be two different people then maybe Flowey and Asriel should be thought of as different entities too.”

Rain nodded in agreement.

“And what about Chara? Where are we on that issue?” He added with much less optimism.

“Waiting to see how things turn out I’m afraid. She’s been very quiet since we woke up. It hasn’t all set in for us yet but as things stand now, this ending is better than having the remnants of her soul being ripped apart, so she’s wary to ruin that. Without the ability to reset I doubt she will do anything too rash. We can die for good now and as long as she doesn’t have her resets to use as her safety net then I think she could even become manageable. Asriel can undo any damages she tries to do and will keep her from gaining power in that regard.”

“Heh. Almost sounds too good to be true.” He picked at a few blades of grass and drew in a deep breath to brace himself against his next topic. “He uh, he pulled me aside before he came out to talk to you. He’s asked me to keep an eye on you. Apparently whatever I did to him in past resets was enough to make him believe I can handle you if things go south.”

Ah. So she was to have a warden then. She should have expected as much. She nodded slowly, trying to grow accustomed to the thought. “I’d say he’s right. Sorry to have to tie you down like this.”

He shrugged helplessly. “What can I say? The Dreemurrs have a way of roping you into stupid promises.”

“Well, look on the bright side.”

Sans frowned when she didn’t elaborate. He lifted a boney brow in curiosity. “Go on.”

She pointed one finger up at the sky. “Well you have to actually  _look_ , Sans.” She teased.

For a split second it didn’t connect for him. Then he looked up and the lights in his eyes got so big they looked like little fireworks. His mouth parted and he fell silent for several seconds as he took in the countless stars of the cosmos stretched out in the sky above him.

“You know what?” He finally whispered. “Maybe you are right. That is a pretty bright side, isn’t it?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can not tell you how close I came to ending the story on the bittersweet note of Sans and Papyrus seeing real rain for the first time. I almost did it! I almost killed her off! But it would have left plot holes so I guess you guys get a happy ending after all. ;)
> 
> Keep an eye out for the Prologue! I am going to post that tonight as well! =)
> 
> Wow this is really it, isn't it? hard to believe I have been working on this since April 2016.   
> This is it. We are going to be free.


	56. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So... its been a while...

So…it’s been a while.

I told myself I would start keeping a journal after the last reload took place. It’s more for Sans’s benefit than my own. He always gets stressed out whenever they happen and since he has some weird trick that lets you save scraps of information outside of the timeline, I figured it was about time I write down something to keep him in the loop.

So, here is the rundown of how things have gone since the barrier was broken.

Our first few attempts to integrate monsters into society were…not good. There was panic, violence, conspiracy theories and a lot of crappy agreements made that didn’t end well. Asriel had to pull us back a few times so we could start over with what we learned before we figured out a way to not freak everyone out.

Alphys was the one that saved us in the end with her love of online media. Turns out it’s really hard to paint monsters as demonic hell beasts of the apocalypse when they all run cute blogs that answer any and all questions asked of them or make adorable internet videos about cooking pasta. I’m pretty sure half the Underground is internet famous by now. And Mettaton is like, B movie mega famous. Somehow. Everything has his goddamn face on it now.

**_Everything._ **

And of course Papyrus buys all of that merchandise. I literally can’t wipe my ass without finding Mettaton’s face hidden on the paper. It’s horrible.

But hey, gaudiness aside Mettaton has been a huge help and I have gained a lot of respect for him. Me and Asriel are working as monster ambassadors now but before I was ready to do that Mettaton was already out there running around doing interviews. And when it was our turn to step into the spotlight he took us under his wing (and onto his private jet) and guided us through everything.

Chara still hates him and is convinced he’s one faulty chip away from being a more flamboyant version of the Terminator but at least he tones down his act around her now.

Ah, yes, Chara. I assume that whoever is reading this probably wants me to get down to the brass tacks, right?

Well, ok. So it’s not exactly been all sunshine and roses but it’s been…manageable. Sort of. Like I said, the first few resets were the hardest and I hate to admit that I caused a few of those. But things are getting better now! Things with the humans are finally going well and Chara’s quiet most days and has calmed down a bit. She still doesn’t want to try and get any better though. She’s still a cold pit inside of me but I have come to accept that she’s a part of me now. We all have to live with personal demons- mine are just a little more literal than most.

She still gets pissy now and then and has given a few people black eyes but luckily humans are not as fragile as monsters so it didn’t lead to anything significant. (Honestly some of them deserved it anyway.) Oh yeah, she has also set things on fire a few times- but we are getting better at preventing that!

So yeah. Complicated but livable.

Of course I have to keep her a secret from the media for obvious reasons and I can’t ever have children because there is a good chance she could try and possess them as well, but I knew I wasn’t going to get off scot-free. So I’m ok with missing out on that part.

But as long as I step out every few weeks and let her go do something destructive in a safe environment things turn out ok. She gave up trying to hurt our friends after an attempt on Papyrus brought the wrath of Sans down on her. Not to mention Asriel will simply pull time back a few days if she gains any power- so she always ends up treading water.

Asriel and Daniel are doing great, by the way. The two of them get along famously and have settled in to sharing a body much easier than me and Chara ever did.

As the second strongest pool of Determination, I can remember partial resets and if things ever get so bad that they require a true reset all the way back to the day we broke the barrier, Asriel fills me in on everything that’s happened. So rest easy guys, I have been able to keep an eye on him and he’s going a great job. He’s taking good care of the timeline- which is starting to heal by the way! Now that we have stopped going back to the same point over and over again things are apparently looking better out there in the void, according to Sans’s machines.

It’s been years since Asriel has had to reset or reload anything. Once we knew how to safely introduce monsters back into society we had no need for resets anymore.

In other Dreemurr related news, Tori and Asgore haven’t gotten back together but they have had a reckoning of sorts and are on good enough terms with each other to have civil conversations now. Asgore is still technically the king of monsters but overall they are both living simple lives and are happy to have their son back.

Oh, that’s another thing. Mt. Ebott and a few square miles around it are now considered a Domestic Dependent Nation of Monsters. It’s not an ideal long term solution but they got a little reservation to take refuge on while the worlds figures out the complicated things such as marriage and citizenship. It seems to be working in their favor thanks to all that gold they have saved up, so now monster houses are popping up like weeds. Asgore has dubbed the reservation New New Home. Yeah. Not good with the names, is he? (Although I am hearing rumors that some monsters are trying to get the new capitol named Rainfall. Hah!)

Hm, what else?

I’m living with Sans and Papyrus now in a home on the edge of the monster-owned land. It’s close enough to the nearest city for Papyrus to mingle with the locals but far enough away to grant me a big yard with hardly any neighbors. Me and Sans both seem to enjoy the peace and quiet.

Sans always tried to get Papyrus to move out and get his own place in every timeline we have gone through. He doesn’t want to share the risk of having me as a roommate but not once has he ever managed to convince Papyrus to leave.

Me and Sans started out on uneasy ground at first but I can now safely say that I love both brothers dearly and consider them my closest friends. We all still have our bad days of course. Nightmares, flashbacks, phantom pains; stuff like that. But it’s easier to bear with them there. Even if the scars will never go away.

It has taken Sans a while to convince himself that this life is here to stay but now that monsters have settled in and the last mandatory reset was quite some time ago he’s finally starting to breathe again. He’s also gained a few more hit points. Everyone wants to throw him a party when he reaches ten.

I’m glad he’s happy.

And Papyrus? Oh boy. He took YouTube by storm! The house gets flooded with his shitty fan mail every day. He _loves_ it!

Let’s see… what else to talk about?

Alphys and Undyne are finally dating. About time. It’s looking pretty serious between those two.

Alphys got fired from the monster lab for the whole amalgamate deal but the second she poked her nose out into the human world she immediately landed a job as lead engineer with some government agency she can’t really talk about but holy crap is she raking in the cash.

She’s also a very successful blogger and a talented cosplayer. Things were still kind of awkward between us for a while but by now we have settled back down as friends.

As for Undyne? Good lord. What has she  _not_  been up to? She’s still the “Captain” of the “Royal Guard” but that’s basically just the reservation’s police force and not much happens here so she’s got lots of down time that she fills with her own brand of YouTube videos called “Undyne Tries.” Basically she takes perfectly normal every day activities and does them the Undyne Way.

She also organized a pretty popular LARP group that always gets out of hand. It’s crazy and she loves it.

So, yeah. I think that’s about it. Everything is going really well now. I mean, I still can’t eat human food- it doesn’t agree with me anymore. But that’s ok. It falls right through Papyrus and Sans too so there’s not much of it in the house anyway.

Oh, and I found out what my old name used to be! But, well, I decided to stick with Rain. I never went back to my parents and I sure as hell am not going back to that name.

So to whoever is reading this- relax. Take a deep breath. You’ve earned this. We’ve all earned this. Things are going to be ok.

Oh yeah! One more thing. I think I have finally come up with the new lyrics for that song I used to sing.

***

A knock at the door interrupted her writing.

“Hey. You about ready? Al and Undyne are already there waiting for us and I wouldn’t be much of a customer if I missed Grillby’s grand opening.”

“Yeah just a second. Need to write something down before I forget.” Rain scribbled a few messy lines down on the back of the page, brushing bright red strands of hair out of her eyes as she went.

Sans waited in the doorway, enjoying the look of sunlight’s spread out across her desk.

“There. Good to go.” She jumped up from her seat and gave him the once over. “That’s what you are wearing? To the grand opening?”

He shrugged. “Course it is. Why break tradition?”

“Even the slippers?”

“I like the splash of color it adds.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You know he’s going to corner you about your tab when he sees you, right?”

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

He gave her a playful grin. “Already paid it off. Where do you think he got the cash for his new place anyway?”

Her mouth fell open. She couldn’t help but laugh. She never thought she would see the day where Sans would pay his debts.

Papyrus started squawking at them from the bottom of the stairs. “Sans! Rain! Hurry up! We are going to be late.”

“S’ok bro. I know a shortcut.”

“No! No shortcut!” Papyrus stomped. “I am going to drive you there and that’s final! Don’t you try and worm out of it this time, Sans!” Papyrus had recently been gifted his dream car from the mysterious " _Sans_ ta Clause" and now he insisted on driving them everywhere- even if it was only a block or two away.

“Right. Let’s go. Here.” Rain slapped the journal into his hand as she passed.

He flipped it over, tilting his head. “What’s this?”

“Documents. Keep it with your pictures. In case you ever need to  _know_.”

Sans flipped open to the back page as Rain hurried down the stairs and out to the car. He could hear Papyrus talking to her through the open door.

“So what do you plan on having for the grand opening?”

“I think I will go for the classic burger. What about you?”

“I don’t like grease. But perhaps I shall order a milkshake. Chara, how about you?”

“The hot wings.” She answered reluctantly, guarded but not as snappy as usual.

Their conversation continued while Sans headed out to the car at a much more leisurely pace. The spring air was warm and sweet and above them the sky was a perfect shade of blue. Rain and Papyrus were happily chattering away, making bets and dares concerning their plans for Grillby’s Grand Opening party. Chara muttered promises of not stabbing anything so long as no bagels were ordered.

Sans smiled when he read the last few lines in the journal and realized that he finally, truly felt at ease.

He was happy.

 

_Can you hear the song the birds are singing?_

_Under the sun there’s golden flowers blooming_

_Everyone is fine; the rain has washed away the dust_

_We have finally won this…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. Oh my god you guys, we made it to the end. This feels so surreal. I am both happy and sad that its finally over. I can't believe its been like a year and eight months since I first sat down and started to write this monster of a story. I have enjoyed it every step of the way and I hope you have too.  
> From the art, the planning, the editing and the sharing- it has been one big wild ride and I can't tell you how surprised and truly grateful I am that I had readers who stayed with me through the whole thing- massive delays and all.  
> I wasn't sure anyone would read this when I started. I told myself if there was proof of just a single person reading this I would keep going- so imagine my surprise whenever I got all your lovely comments! I hope I did this story justice not only for me, but for you. 
> 
> A year and eight months, 56 chapters, 310,633 words, (thats like reading Order of the Phoenix- twice!) 557 pages. Thanks for reading them all.  
> Published:2016-06-15 Completed:2017-12-26
> 
> ~*~*~*~*  
> So I guess I can try and answer your questions now if you want. If there are a lot of them I may add an "ask the author" page at the end of all this or something- or just answer things in the comment section. who knows.  
> Wow- i guess I can start working on my original works now! what a wild ride you guys. Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!


End file.
